+PARA #PAR@ ` #TEXT ` Carter, Caroline Louise Dudley
1862╨1937
actor
Born in Lexington, Kentucky, on June 10, 1862, Caroline Dudley grew up in Cleveland until she moved with her widowed mother to Dayton, Ohio, in 1870. In May 1880 she married Leslie Carter, a wealthy Chicago socialite, and although the marriage ended nine years later in a highly publicized divorce charging her with infidelity, she retained thereafter the name Mrs. Leslie Carter.
Carter decided to seek a stage career and obtained an introduction to David Belasco, whose initial skepticism of a society woman as a dramatic actress she soon overcame. After a period of arduous training in which Belasco taught her to make effective use of her great physical and emotional energy, she made her stage debut in New York City in November 1890 in The Ugly Duckling. The play itself was a failure and had only a short run. In November 1891 she opened in Miss Helyett, a Belasco adaptation of a Parisian hit, and enjoyed some success. Her next appearance did not come until October 1895, when she created a sensation in Belasco╒s own The Heart of Maryland in Washington, D.C., and then New York, where it ran for over 200 performances; later she played it with equal success in London. In 1899 she was again a great hit in Zaza, another adaptation from the French that she also took to England. Madame Du Barry in 1901 and Adrea in 1905 firmly fixed David Belasco and Mrs. Leslie Carter in the public mind as one of the great theatrical partnerships. The partnership ended abruptly in July 1906, when she suddenly married William L. Payne, a young actor. Belasco took offense, broke with her, and never spoke to her again. She attempted to keep her career going but with little success. Roles in Kassa, Vasta Herne, Two Women, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Magda, The Shanghai Gesture, and others added nothing to her reputation and left her in debt. A vaudeville revival of Zaza was financially rewarding in 1915, and she also made a film version of Madame Du Barry, but in 1916 she retired. She returned to the stage briefly in 1921 to appear opposite John Drew in The Circle. Until Belasco╒s death in 1931 she kept up an impassioned and entirely one-sided correspondence with him, but he never forgave her. She died in Santa Monica, California, on November 13, 1937.
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