Born on November 6, 1797, in Schenectady, New York, Frances Ann Denny grew up in Albany. In 1815 she joined a theatrical troupe organized by Samuel Drake to bring entertainment to the wilds of Kentucky. On the journey to that state she made her stage debut in Cherry Valley, New York, in the comedy The Midnight Hour. Her debut in tragedy occurred in Cooperstown in Adelgitha. During the Kentucky tour she revealed great potential talent.
About 1819 Denny struck out on her own, and after appearances in Montreal and Boston she made her New York debut in April 1820 in Man and Wife at the Park Theatre. She remained at the Park until her marriage in 1822 or 1823 to Alexander Drake, a son of her former manager and a gifted comedian. By 1824 she had attained star status in New York and was noted especially for her portrayal of tragic heroines, although she continued to appear in comedies as well.
After that year Drake performed mainly in the West, where she gained a reputation as the ╥tragedy queen╙ of the American stage and was sometimes known as the ╥Star of the West.╙ She won high praise from the visiting English critic Frances Trollope, who liked virtually nothing else about America. On her occasional returns to the New York stage she appeared opposite James William Wallack, Junius Brutus Booth, Thomas S. Hamblin, and other leading actors. Her final New York appearance was in 1835, but she continued to act until the late 1840s. She was without doubt the leading actress on the American stage in the period before the rise of Charlotte Cushman. Drake retired to a farm near Louisville, Kentucky, and died there on September 1, 1875.
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