Ellis Jeffreys

Minnie Gertrude Ellis Jeffreys (12 May 1868(?) She then appeared at Her Majesty's Theatre in December 1889, as Butterfly in the pantomime Cinderella, after which she was engaged for the Lyric Theatre where she appeared in 1890 as Polly in The Sentry and then during the long run of La Cigale, she played and sang several leading female roles. Unlike some actresses who retired after marrying into the aristocracy, she continued her stage career. At the Garrick Theatre in 1895, she created the role of Mrs Gertrude Thorpe in The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith in a starry cast that included Mrs Patrick Campbell, John Hare, Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Gerald du Maurier. When Hare took the production to the US, Jeffreys joined him in the Broadway cast, along with Julia Neilson and Fred Terry.

West End star On her return to England Jeffreys played in The Misogynist at the St James's Theatre, with George Alexander and Allan Aynesworth. She continued to appear in Alexander's company both in London and on tour in his Ruritanian play The Prisoner of Zenda, handing her role over to Fay Davis in October 1896. Still under Alexander's management she then returned to her more familiar territory of modern-dress comedy as Lady Miranda in His Little Dodge, an adaptation of a Feydeau farce. The Pall Mall Gazette judged that Jeffreys's highly promising gift for comedy had now come to fruition, and thought her the best of the cast, which also included Fred Terry, Weedon Grossmith and Alfred Maltby. The theatrical newspaper The Era said:

Her first marriage ended in 1903, when she obtained a divorce on the grounds of Curzon's cruelty and adultery; she was awarded custody of their two children, Evelyn Ellis Isabella and George (later a successful actor). In 1904 she married the actor-manager Herbert Sleath (1870–1921), to whom she remained married for the rest of his life. In October 1907 Jeffreys appeared in the opening production of the Queen's Theatre in Madeleine Lucette Ryley's comedy The Sugar Bowl, under her husband's management. Also with Sleath's company she toured in Edwin Milton Royle's A White Man. At His Majesty's in 1909 Jeffreys played a part some way removed from her usual agreeable and attractive characters, appearing as the vicious Lady Sneerwell in Tree's production of The School for Scandal. Reviews were good, and although The Athenaeum thought Jeffreys adopted "perhaps rather too gentle a manner to suggest the widow's acidity of temper", The Morning Post found her "agreeably disagreeable".

Later years

Later roles included Mrs Quesnel in The Case of Rebellious Susan and Madge Bolt in Is Matrimony a Failure? at the Criterion (1911), Comtesse Zicka in a revival of Diplomacy at Wyndham's (1913) and Mrs Cameron in The Flag Lieutenant at the Haymarket (1914). At the Globe, Jeffreys played the Countess Olga in Fedora in 1920 and Emily Ladew in Her Husband's Wife in 1921. The following year she was seen at Drury Lane as the Lady Violante in Decameron Nights. Other roles included Lady Frinton in The Last of Mrs Cheyney at the St James's in 1925, Lady Trench in Frederick Lonsdale's Never Come Back with Allan Aynesworth, Viola Tree and the young Raymond Massey at the Phoenix Theatre in 1932 and Lady Mary Crabb in Fresh Fields at the Criterion in 1933.

In the 1930s Jeffreys appeared in thirteen films, playing Mrs Langford in Raise the Roof (1930), Elizabeth Green in Birds of Prey (1931), Lady Marian Mainwaring in Tilly of Bloomsbury (1931), Aunt Emily Debrant in Leap Year (1932), Lady Ellerslie in Two White Arms (1932), Lady Marshall in The Barton Mystery (1933), Frau Kleiner in Where Is This Lady? (1933), Mrs Carmichael in Lilies of the Field (1934), Lady Elizabeth in Eliza Comes to Stay (1936), Lady Madeleine Knox in Limelight (1936), Mrs Hammond in While Parents Sleep (1936), Lady Maude Wall in Return of a Stranger (1937) and Lady Tonbridge in Sweet Devil (1938).

Jeffreys retired in 1938, and died at her home in Chobham, Surrey on 21 January 1943. In an obituary notice The Stage said of her, "Ellis Jeffreys had all the qualities of a comedy actress – fine presence, keen humour, feeling, ease and distinction of manner, polish, and an accomplished technique". The Times said:

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