Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry

Dame Ellen Terry, GBE (27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain.

Born into a family of actors, Terry began acting as a child in Shakespeare plays and continued as a teen, in London and on tour. At sixteen she married the much older artist George Frederic Watts, but they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting but then began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for six years. She returned to acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics.

In 1878 she joined Henry Irving's company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain.

In 1903 Terry took over management of London's Imperial Theatre, focusing on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. The venture was a financial failure, however, and Terry then toured and later also lectured. She continued to find acting success until 1920, while also appearing in films until 1922. Her career lasted nearly seven decades.

Read more about Ellen Terry:  Early Life and Career, Watts, Godwin, Portia, Shakespeare, Irving, Lyceum, Shaw, Ibsen, Barrie, Films and Last Years, Legacy

Famous quotes containing the words ellen terry, ellen and/or terry:

    Imagination, industry, and intelligence—”the three I’s”Mare all indispensable to the actress, but of these three the greatest is, without doubt, imagination.
    Ellen Terry (1848–1928)

    The country needs the political work of women to-day as much as it has ever needed woman in any other work at any other time.
    —J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)

    It has never been in my power to sustain ... I can pass swiftly from one effect to another, but I cannot fix one, and dwell on it, with that superb concentration which seems to me the special attribute of the tragic actress.
    —Ellen Terry (1847–1928)