Alma Murray

Alma Murray (21 November 1854 – 3 July 1945) was an English actress, familiar in classic plays and contemporary drama, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Life and career

Early years

Alma Murray was born in London into a theatrical family, the daughter of the actor Leigh Murray and his wife, the actress Sarah Mannering.

Murray's first appearance was at the Olympic Theatre in January 1870 as Sacharissa in W. S. Gilbert's The Princess. In 1876, after a series of provincial engagements, she married the poet Alfred William Forman, the first translator of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. They had one child, Elsa.

Equally at home in modern or classic drama, Murray appeared as Julia in The Rivals, Grace Harkaway in London Assurance, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Rosalind in As You Like It. In 1884, at the Comedy Theatre, London, she played in The New Woman, with Fred Terry and Cyril Maude. In 1885 she appeared in A Leader of Men with Marion Terry and H. B. Irving. She played Helena in John Todhunter's Helena in Troas (1886) and in 1890 appeared in A Modern Marriage, opposite Ellaline Terriss and Lewis Waller.

From 1915 onwards Murray appeared less and less frequently, and soon after the First World War she retired from the stage altogether. She outlived her husband by twenty years and died in London on 3 July 1945 at the age of ninety.