Ellaline Terriss

Mary Ellaline Terriss, Lady Hicks (born Mary Ellaline Lewin, 13 April 1871 – 16 June 1971), known professionally as Ellaline Terriss, was a popular British actress and singer, best known for her performances in Edwardian musical comedies. She met and married the actor-producer Seymour Hicks in 1893, and the two collaborated on many projects for the stage and screen.

The daughter of the actor William Terriss, Ellaline made her London stage debut at the age of 16 in Cupid's Messenger at London's Haymarket Theatre. Impressed with her performance, the producer Charles Wyndham gave her a three-year contract, under which she first played Madge in Why Women Weep. In 1892 Terriss starred in Faithful James (by B. C. Stephenson), and the following year she starred in the title role of Cinderella, produced by Henry Irving. She was featured in W. S. Gilbert's His Excellency in 1894, followed the next year by a starring role in the George Edwardes production of the musical The Shop Girl, playing alongside her husband. The next year she starred in another musical hit, The Circus Girl.

In 1897, her father was murdered by a deranged actor. As a result, she received much public sympathy, returning to the stage to star in A Runaway Girl in 1898, one of her most successful shows. In the 1900s, she starred in a series of long-running hits, including Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), Quality Street (1902), The Catch of the Season (1905) and The Beauty of Bath (1906). After 1910, Terriss concentrated on comedy roles and music hall tours. Her unsuccessful return to musical comedy, Cash on Delivery (1917), confirmed the wisdom of this new career course.

Her later career also included film roles. She began in the silent films Scrooge and David Garrick (both from 1913) and made a successful transfer to talkies; her last film was The Four Just Men in 1939. She died in Hampstead, England, at the age of 100.

Early life Terriss was born in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.

Her father, William Lewin, became a well-known actor in London under the name William Terriss. He loved the adventurous, outdoor life, and had previously tried his hand at various professions, including farmer, merchant seaman and silver miner. Shortly after Ellaline's birth, he gave up farming and moved his family back to England where, because of his swashbuckling style, was known as "Breezy Bill". Her brother Tom became an actor and then a well-known film director. Her mother Isabel (née Lewis) also acted under the stage name Amy Fellowes.

Early career

Terriss performed from an early age, although she had no real ambition to act professionally. Petite, pretty and talented, she attracted the praise of both critics and the public. In December 1893, Terriss starred in the title role in the successful and famously lavish version of the "fairy pantomime" Cinderella, produced by Henry Irving with music by Oscar Barrett. Toward the end of the run, Hicks took over the role of Thisbe, one of Cinderella's half-sisters. They brought this production to America under the management of George Edwardes. The following season, Terriss played a supporting role in the W. S. Gilbert and Frank Osmond Carr comic opera His Excellency. Another early success for the young couple was The Circus Girl (1896; Terriss made Lionel Monckton's song, "A Simple Little String" into a major hit). They then joined forces with the producer Charles Frohman and, in his company over a period of seven years, they played the leads in a series of musicals written by Hicks, including: Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), which was continually revived as a Christmas entertainment for the next four decades; The Cherry Girl (1902); The Beauty of Bath (1906), which opened the Hicks Theatre (later renamed the Globe) and included additional lyrics by a newcomer, P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Jerome Kern, which became one of Terriss's best-loved roles; and The Gay Gordons (1907).

Later career

The couple performed constantly, both in London and on tour in America, except when Terriss was pregnant with Betty. In 1905, Terriss took over the role of Angela in her husband's The Catch of the Season, which had been created by Zena Dare during Terriss's pregnancy.

After the failure of Captain Kidd (1910),

She made a successful transition to talkies, including Atlantic (1929), A Man of Mayfair (1931), Glamour (1931), The Iron Duke (1934), Royal Cavalcade (1935) and The Four Just Men (1939). She was the subject of an episode of This Is Your Life in 1962.

Terriss died at the Holy Family Nursing Home, Hampstead, London, at the age of 100 as a result of a hip fracture sustained during a fall.

Genealogy