Lillian Lewis

Lillian Lewis (1852 – August 11, 1899) was an American stage actress known for her performances in comedies and modern dramas in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Her business manager and husband, playwright Lawrence Marston, wrote many of the plays in which she starred. She also collaborated with him as a playwright on three works.

Early life Katharine Lillian Manley, later known by Lillian, was born in 1852.

She spent several years as a schoolteacher in Emporium and in Shippen, then moved with her father around 1873 to Minnesota. She enrolled in an elocution school in St. Louis, then began her stage career.

In 1888 she married Lawrence Marston, who had been for some time her leading man. Marston continued to act the principal men of her plays, managed her business, and adapted and wrote plays for her. Lewis went on to perform in As in a Looking Glass, Doña Sol, Credit Lorraine, Lady Lil, Good-by, Sweetheart, An Innocent Sinner, For Liberty and Love and The Widow Goldstein. The last three were the joint work of Lewis and Marston. In her production, dancers performed a barefoot ballet for Cleopatra, to which Lewis had bought exclusive performance rights. She later requested the dance be removed from the production. According to Marston, quoted in the Los Angeles Herald in December 1895, "You know that Cleopatra is a difficult character to portray; in fact, the most difficult character in the whole range of the drama, and Miss Lewis thinks that the barefoot ballet, or rather this barefoot and barelegged dance, has been advertised so extensively that the people go to the theater and want to see the dance in the first act, and as it does not come on until the third act it makes it very hard for her." Although Lewis had a reputation as a skillful comedic and modern dramatic actor, her performance in Cléopâtre earned mixed reviews.

Lewis's stage career took her to various cities throughout the United States, and to Canada and Europe. In around 1895, while touring the southern United States, Lewis fell ill. Her last appearance was in St. Louis, on April 27, 1898.

Personal life In 1888, Lewis married Lawrence Marston.

Battling tuberculosis, Lewis retired from acting in 1898 and returned to Minnesota, where her sister resided. She died in Farmington, Minnesota on August 11, 1899.