Mrs. Patrick Campbell

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Mrs. Patrick Campbell (undated)

Mrs. Patrick Campbell (born February 9, 1865 in Kensington , London as Beatrice Stella Tanner , † April 9, 1940 in Pau , Aquitaine , France ) was a British actress .

Alongside Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse , she was one of the great theater actresses of the 19th century and was characterized above all by her unapproachable Pre-Raphaelite beauty in the portrayal of dramatic female characters from Ibsen or Shakespeare .

Life

Beatrice Stella Tanner was the daughter of the English businessman Jon Tanner and the Italian Countess Maria Romanini. Her first marriage to Patrick Campbell, by whose name she later became known, had two children: Alan (called Beo) and Stella . Patrick Campbell was killed in the Boer War in 1900 . Beatrice kept her husband's name as a stage name "Mrs. Patrick Campbell “throughout his life.

After a few attempts as an amateur actress, the young actress made her stage debut at the Alexandra Theater in Liverpool in 1888 . In 1890 Mrs. Patrick Campbell had her successful breakthrough at the Adelphi Theater in London , where she then made several guest appearances from 1891 to 1893. She had her first major successes in the title role of "Paula" from Arthur Wing Pinero's play The Second Mrs. Tanqueray in 1893 and in The Masqueraders in 1884 at St. James's Theater .

In the play John-a-Dreams produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theater , Campbell successfully played the role of "Kate Cloud" in 1884; in the following years she shone in numerous productions a. a. as "Agnes" in The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith at the Garrick Theater , and in Fédora (both 1895), as well as in Little Eyolf (1896) and in numerous appearances with Johnston Forbes-Robertson at the Lyceum Theater in London. From 1895 to 1898 Mrs. Patrick Campbell played mostly in Shakespeare dramas: As "Juliet" in Romeo and Juliet , as "Ophelia" in Hamlet and as "Lady Macbeth" in Macbeth .

In 1900 Campbell made her US debut as " Magda " at the Broadway Theater in New York City , another hit for the actress. Afterwards she played for several years on Broadway, so she played "Mélisande" in Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande or " Hedda Gabler " in Henrik Ibsen 's play of the same name alongside Sarah Bernhardt . With interruptions she returned to Broadway several times until 1930.

George Bernard Shaw

In 1914 Mrs. Campbell married the writer George Cornwallis-West , who was previously in a relationship with Winston Churchill's mother Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill). In the same year she engaged George Bernard Shaw as "Eliza Doolittle" for his Pygmalion . Although Campbell was far too old for the role of Eliza at 49 years old, Shaw made the role for her; On the one hand, the actress was now the best-known actress on the London stage and, on the other hand, for Shaw, also for personal reasons, the best cast of the role: Because despite the marriage alliances he had an intimate relationship with Mrs. Campbell, which often gives rise to spicy speculations in the London company was. The British painter Philip Burne-Jones spread this love affair in his work The Vampire (1896). Campbell and Shaw's long-term correspondence, which lasted until the beginning of the Second World War , documents this platonic love affair and later also provided material for numerous plays.

Later years and death

In later years the actress became quieter, the heyday of classical dramatic theater was over, and so she tried to gain a foothold in senior roles in some film productions with more modest success; However , she missed the connection to Hollywood . She played her last film role in 1935 in Josef von Sternberg 's Dostoevsky film Guilt and Atonement , in which she is killed as a malicious pawnbroker by Peter Lorre . Mrs. Campbell had already left the stage in 1933. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she ended up sick and destitute, in the Pyrenees in southern France where she died in the Aquitaine town of Pau on April 9, 1940 at the age of 75 and was buried.

reception

The Vampire by Philip Burne-Jones
  • The 1896 painting The Vampire by Pre-Raphaelite artist Philip Burne-Jones shows the features of Mrs. Patrick Campbell and sparked heated controversy in London society at the time because it is a clear allusion to Campbell's extramarital liaison with George Bernard Shaw.
  • Mrs. Patrick Campbell was one of the great theater divas of the 19th century , along with Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse , and was mentioned in numerous theater reviews of the time.
  • The long-standing correspondence between Mrs. Patrick Campbell and George Bernard Shaw was adapted for the play "Beloved Liar" by the British author Jerome Kilty .

Filmography

  • 1920: The Money Moon
  • 1930: The Dancers
  • 1931: Riptide
  • 1934: One More River
  • 1934: Outcast Lady
  • 1935: Crime and Punishment (Crime and Punishment)

Fonts

Writings and letters from Mrs. Patrick Campbell:

  • My Life And Some Letters . Autobiography, Kessinger Publishing Co., 2005, ISBN 1-4179-0475-5 (English)
  • Bernard Shaw & Mrs. Patrick Campbell: Their Correspondence edited by George Bernard Shaw; Reprinted by AMS Press Inc, 2002, ISBN 0-404-20233-0 (English)

literature

  • Margot Peters: Mrs. Pat: The Life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell , Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1985 ISBN 0-241-11535-3 (English).
as an audio book

Web links

Commons : Mrs. Patrick Campbell  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. cf. The correspondence between GB Shaw and Mrs. Campbell as a play ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Shaw , Dramatic Opinions (London, 1907)