Ellen Terry was a popular English actress known for her Shakespearean roles. She began her career at age seven and later became a theater manager. She had a famous correspondence with George Bernard Shaw and was made a Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire.
Ellen Terry was one of the most popular English actresses of the early 20th century. Primarily known for her Shakespearean roles, she began her stage career at the age of seven. In her later years, she became a theater manager and had a famous correspondence with playwright George Bernard Shaw.
Ellen Terry was born on February 27, 1847 in Coventry, England. Both of her parents were actors and later four of her ten siblings would also take up her craft. Two of her non-acting brothers had careers in theater management.
As a child, Ellen Terry studied acting with Shakespearean actor Charles Kean and performed at his Princess Theater in London, following in the footsteps of her older sister Kate. Ellen Terry first appeared as the Duke of York in Richard III at the age of seven, followed by the role of Mamilius in A Winter’s Tale at the age of nine. When Charles Kean and his wife Ellen retired in 1859, Kate and Ellen Terry toured for two years with their parents.
Ellen Terry worked at London’s Royalty Theater for two years before partnering Kate in 1962, this time in Bristol under manager JH Chute. She added burlesque to her repertoire but continued to play Shakespearean roles. When Chute opened a new theater in 1863 in Bath, Ellen Terry appeared as Titania in the opening production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Later that year, while working at the Haymarket Theater in London, Ellen Terry met her first husband, George Frederick Watts, who painted a portrait of her and Kate. The wedding took place in February 1864. Watts was 30 years her senior and Ellen Terry felt stifled in the marriage, during which she put her acting career on hold. Both were in a relationship and broke up after ten months.
In 1867, after accompanying Kate on her farewell tour, Ellen Terry played her first role opposite the actor Henry Irving, with whom she would later form a successful acting duo. The following year, however, she again interrupted her career to begin a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin, with whom she had two children, Edith and Edward. After the relationship ended in 1874, Ellen Terry turned once more to the stage.
Henry Irving invited Ellen Terry to star at the Lyceum Theater in London in 1873, and the two dominated English theater for over twenty years. Ellen Terry’s children also appeared on stage with her from time to time during this era. Ellen Terry remarried, to actor Charles Clavering Wardell, in 1877.
In 1903, Ellen Terry divorced her husband and turned her attention to running the theater with the help of her two sons. She undertook a lengthy correspondence with George Bernard Shaw and was largely responsible for popularizing her works on the English stage, as well as those of Henrik Ibsen. Ellen Terry began acting again in 1906 and would continue to appear on stage to great acclaim in England and the United States well into the 1920s. She also appeared in a film, Her Greatest Performance (1916), and wrote an autobiography, The Story of My Life.
In 1925, Ellen Terry was made a Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire in honor of her impressive and influential stage career. She died on 21 July 1928 remembered as one of the best English actresses of all time. Her children have also been involved in theater in various capacities throughout their lives.
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