Julia Arthur

Julia Arthur (May 3, 1869 – March 28, 1950) was a Canadian-born stage and film actress.

Early life Born Ida Lewis in Hamilton, Ontario, May 3, 1869, she was the daughter of Thomas J. Lewis, a tobacco manufacturer, and Elizabeth (Arthur) Lewis. She was the eldest of nine siblings. Her younger sister, Eleanor Letitia Lewis, became an actress known by the stage name, "Eleanor Dorel".

Ida Lewis began acting at the age of 11, in 1879, when she played the part of Gamora in The Honeymoon in some amateur theatricals in her own home. She displayed such remarkable ability for her age that a brilliant future for her was predicted. She made her first professional appearance in 1880 with the Daniel E. Bandmann repertoire company as the Prince of Wales in Richard III, and thenceforth she was before the public as Julia Arthur, using the first name of Julia and her mother's maiden name. A year of study in Germany followed. Upon her return in 1885 she joined a repertoire company in California, playing the leading female roles in a number of modern plays, among them the Galley Slave, Called Back, Two Orphans, Woman Against Woman, Captain Swift, Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue, Jim the Penman, The Silver King, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Still Alarm, Peril, Divorce, and The Private Secretary.

Marriage Famous Actresses of the Day in America by Lewis Clinton Strang pub. 1899

At Covington, Kentucky, on February 23, 1898, Julia Arthur (née Ida Lewis) married Benjamin Pierce Cheney Jr., only son of the wealthy Boston expressman, whose country estate is now the Elm Bank Horticulture Center.

On October 3, 1898, she appeared for the first time as Parthenia in her own production of Ingomar, repeating the successes of the previous year. On November 28, 1898, she produced As You Like It at Wallack's in New York City, and her performance of the part of Rosalind was conceded to be one of the best known to the American stage. She was director and producer as well as star of Seremonda, which ran on Broadway from January 1, 1917, to March 1917. On May 17, 1918, she revived Out There on Broadway, continuing through the end of the month.

Later life Julia Arthur said her farewell to Broadway in Macbeth, in which she played Lady Macbeth opposite Lionel Barrymore. The play opened on February 17, 1921, and continued into March. It was later reported that she had come out of retirement because of her husband's financial reverses.

The Cheneys lived in relative ease and comfort, though after 1929 in somewhat reduced circumstances owing to financial reverses. Benjamin P. Cheney Jr., died near Kingman, Arizona, on June 10, 1942

Filmography Barbara Fritchie: The Story of a Patriotic American Woman (1908) Ruy Blas (1909) King Lear (1909) The Life of Napoleon (1909) Napoleon, the Man of Destiny (1909) The Life of Moses (1909) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1910) The Woman the Germans Shot (1918) His Woman (1919) The Common Cause (1919)