Mrs Patrick Campbell (1865-1940)
Mrs Patrick Campbell (1865-1940)
(The Playgoer and Society Illustrated, Vol IV, No. 19)
MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL
This celebrated actress, with her alluring personality and fine dramatic gifts, is more or less of a mystery to the theatre-going public apart from the stage. Born in London, her parentage on one side at least - for her mother was Italian - possessed that touch of foreign blood which usually means dramatic temperament. As a girl she was educated at Brighton and London, gaining a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music, which entitled her to three years' tuition in Leipsic. But the gods willed otherwise, for her romantic marriage when only seventeen stepped in the way.
A few years later she commenced playing in amateur theatricals at Norwood, and soon discovered her metier was the stage. In November, 1888, at Liverpool, she made her professional debut as Sophia in "Bachelors." Tours with Ben Greet followed, and after several minor London engagements she came into prominence by creating the title-role in Pinero's remarkable play, "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." The impassioned subtlety of her acting, combined with her exquisite charm, called forth unstinted praise from both the public and the Press. As a manageress she took over the Prince of Wales's Theatre, where, with Forbes Robetson, she staged "The Moonlight Blossoms" and "The Sacrament of Judas."
Neither was a success financially, but, undaunted, she secured a lease of the Royalty, where her regime was marked by high artistic distinction. One of her most notable achievements was in 1904 when she appeared with Sarah Bernhardt in a series of matinees in French of "Pelleas and Melisande," which were repeated a year later, not only in town but throughout England, Ireland and Scotland.
When Sir Herbert Tree gave us that poetic spectacle, "False Gods," he chose Mrs. Patrick Campbell to play the part of blind Meiris. It was a beautiful study, full of pathos as she cried, "Oh! give me some other lie in place of the one they have taken from me." As Lady Patricia she is superb. With irresistible gaiety she imparts just the right touch to a character which in the future will, with "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," always be associated with the name of Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
(Black and White [UK], 20th October, 1900)
AN IMPRESSION OF MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL
Mrs. Patrick Campbell is a very remarkable woman. Like every actor or actress who has made a really great name, she has fervent admirers and equally fervent detractors. There are those among my readers who may remember the time when the best-abused man of the day was Sir Henry Irving himself! It was the same with Adelina Patti. Those who did not adore abused her roundly. To turn to dramatic authors, I may specially point out Ibsen as the most worshipped and detested of his kind. And Maeterlinck has his two separate camps. Among painters the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones should be cited as the Inspirer-in-Chief of devotion and the reverse.
It is a sign that an actor or actress must have a potent personality to awaken any very heated controversy. The personality of Mrs. Campbell (she hates to be called "Mrs. Pat") is something altogether unique. She is elusive - you have her and you have her not! When a part is entrusted to her, you may speculate as to whether she will make a success with it or a failure. Her Mrs. Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebbsmith, and Magda were immense successes. Therefore it was said on all sides, "The woman with a Past is the one part she can play."
Her Juliet and Lady Teazle proved quasi-failures, and her detractors assailed her admirers with "I told you so!" Then came her greatest success of all - not in the part of a "Woman with a Past," no, but as the strange mysterious little creature Melisande. With an exquisite unconsciousness she moved, spoke, looked, and had her being in Maeterlinck's dream play. And such a death was surely never seen on any stage; never, at least, a death so little of the stage.
When you meet her in private life, the gifted woman reminds you not at all of herself, the actress. A lady of my acquaintance remembers that when she was a child the portrait of Lord Brougham was often pointed out to her. The first time she saw him in the flesh she exclaimed, "And very like him, too!" Of Mrs. Campbell you cannot say, "very like her, too!" Upon the stage her face is stern, almost sombre; a smile is seldom upon her lips. En petit comite, excepting on rare occasions, you find her all joy and laughter, and her good spirits are most infectious.
She has the charm, I think, of drawing out what is best in everybody; the shy man becomes talkative, and the garrulous woman more reticent in her presence. With infinite tact she puts people in good humour with one another; brings wit and beauty together, and manages somehow that even the dull and dowdy shall have their innings. The secret of her social success is not far to seek - she is pre-eminently sympathetic.
At home, in Kensington Square, she receives in an informal way many of the distinguished lights of London, politicians, painters, authors, actors, and she has quite a following of her own of smart ladies. What a pretty home hers is! and how well the background suits her! The white bench at the top of the front doorsteps invites you to rest and look around. The old square is still green and pleasant, and though some of the houses are decorated in an aggressively up-to-date manner, which makes your hair stand on end, many have been left mercifully alone and you murmur as you gaze, "Beauty unadorned adorned the most."
Next door to Mrs. Campbell lives Mr. Plunkett Greene, the baritone; on her other side, Mr. Bernard Holland, son of Canon Holland, and of Sibylla Holland, whose fascinating "Letters," recently published, many of us have learnt to know and love. A few doors off Miss Fletcher (George Fleming) has pitched her tent, and her tent is one of the quaint little cottages formerly inhabited by Maids-of-Honour who did duty at Kensington Place. A little to the right lives Lady Winchelsea, of the auburn locks and lily face, and her golden-haired daughter. At the next door, again, another very interesting face may be seen sometimes peeping through the windows; for at the convent in Kensington Square Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) has a room where she flies from the world every now and again, and where she writes some of those charming stories we like so well. Sir Hubert and Lady Parry have a home too in Kensington Square; Mr, Clifford, the painter; Mrs, Green, the wife of the historian; and other choice spirits. Years ago Mdme. Albani stayed here for a season, and those lovely notes of hers might have been heard rivalling the birds that carol in the leafy back-gardens.
Yes. For there are gardens in Kensington Square, all a growing and a blowing too, with geraniums and irises and mignonette. Mrs. Campbell's garden, with its Dutch pathways, is the nicest of all. "Trees where you sit shall crowd into a shade," and it is her custom of an afternoon to entertain her friends to tea beneath their inviting boughs in summer time. "And a pretty picture she makes in a gentle frame of mind," as Mr. Punch, once had it, as she sits there, pouring out tea, pleased with her friends and pleased at their pleasure in her.
If you admire her on the stage it is certain you admire her ten times as much in her garden. The fatigue and pallor of her face strike you first, and the intentness of her eyes. But as she talks the fatigue and pallor vanish, and her eyes smile happily enough. Like her acting, even her very features are elusive, and seem to change with her moods; and she is on rare occasions uncertain, coy, and hard to please, but as a rule all kindness and good nature. Wonderful is the black mass of her hair, which sets round her head like a dark helmet, and throws up to perfection the white beauty of her face. How many artists, I wonder, have painted Mrs. Campbell? A couple of dozen at least. Painters, in fact, rave over her face, her exquisite hands, and her unconventional frocks.
Within doors, the house is worthy its mistress. There is an air of repose about the place, and you wonder who were the quiet spirits who once haunted it. The rooms are panelled, and if there is one room you prefer to the others it is the little "powdering" room, where a great lady sat in the good old days to have her hair whitened with a shower from the puff manipulated by her maid. The drawing-room is decorated in dark harmonious colouring. The paper is "Morris," and the sketches upon the walls are from the hands of Burne-Jones, Lady Waterford, Sargent, Clifford, and many another distinguished artist. A charming piece of statuary is the work of Sarah Bernhardt, who is as great an admirer of Mrs. Campbell as Mrs. Campbell is of her. "Vous seriez grande," said Sarah Bernhardt before she had ever seen her act, "dans une tragedie d' enfant." Prophetic words, when one remembers how Stella Campbell played as the child, Melisande.
But I have migrated from the drawing-room. I should have first pointed out a long, low, golden ottoman that stand s there. You rub your eyes. Did you once see that ottoman in a dream? The actress watches your face, laughing. "No chest! No ottoman!" she explains, "but just Juliet's tomb in the last scene of Romeo, as we gave it at the Lyceum."
Descriptions of other people's possessions are likely to become tedious, so I will wander no farther than the drawing-room. "Show me her room, and I will show you the woman," was the remark of a sage to whom I cannot put a name at the present moment.
Mrs. Campbell must be a charming woman indeed.
Z.
(Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 9th March, 1903)
MRS. CAMPBELL OFF THE STAGE
The personality of a prominent actor or actress, off the stage, is of special interest to those who have never seen them, save with the intervening row of blazing footlights. There, is always a halo of mystery surrounding a famous professional, which acquaintance sometimes dispels and again accentuates. The writer called the other afternoon on Mrs. Patrick Campbell and conversed at short range with the lady who has now made herself famous in two continents. All who have witnessed Mrs. Campbell's public work are aware that she trends toward the heavy, emotional type; the problem play or the tragically poetic. The lighter vein seems to have no place in her ambitions, and the most natural inference would be that her temperament in private life would partake of the same somber line.
The lady is a strange combination, as far as parentage is concerned. Her mother was an Italian, and her father an Irishman, and she has all the nervous excitability of the Latin race, combined with the self-control, and not a little of the inherent wit of the Celt. She is very tall, of the willowy type of figure; hands slightly forward, as is customary with women, especially of English training, who form the habit of approaching nearer to people of less stature than themselves, and gives one the impression of never resting, either mentally or physically while awake. Her face is very dark and surmounted by a mass of wavy, jet black hair, and her features are a perfect study in their ever changing phases. She speaks with a strong British accent, and her voice has a minor key running through it that gives her a soft musical cadence.
Like all educated Britons, who have traveled beyond the confine of their own island, Mrs. Campbell is very observing and eager for information. Very little transpires about her of which she does not take the keenest cognizance, and were she to give for publication all the ideas she has acquired during her two visits to this country it would prove very interesting reading. Then again, she has a quick sense, amounting almost to suspicion, that possibly people are making game of her inexperience in a forein country, and many a flash of the eye and raising of the brows indicate a doubt when the interviewer utters any remark she does not quite comprehend. She is a studious, thoughtful woman, who has "sounded all the shoals and depths of honor," and there is scarcely a subject in any way pertaining to her profession on which she cannot discourse most fluently!
Although the writer came for information, the questioning was for the most part done by the lady herself, and yet there was much gleaned by drawing her into argument, for she apparently enjoys being slightly opposed. Mrs. Campbell expressed a number of views on America and the Americans which demoustrated how closely she has watched both us and our customs. And then Mrs. Campbell went on to speak of the nature of her hopes and aspirations and desires, in which the American stage formed her principal battlefield. After a few minutes conversation with Mrs. Campbell one can readily understand her hold on the public. She has a strong individuality, an earnestness in her calling, and a knowledge of the world - all of which traits equip her most advantageously for her professional life.