.PARA &PAR@ ` ■TEXT ` ≡Marlowe, Julia1866╨1950actorBorn on August 27 (many sources give 17), 1866, in Upton Caldbeck, Cumberland, England, Sarah Frances Frost, known from childhood as Fanny, was brought to the United States by her family in 1870. She grew up in Kansas and later in Ohio under the name Brough, which her father had adopted (he had fled England under the mistaken impression that he had seriously injured a man in a drunken escapade). In Cincinnati she became an avid devotee of the theater, and about the age of twelve she answered a newspaper advertisement and won a place in the chorus of a traveling juvenile opera company managed by Colonel Robert E. J. Miles. She made her stage debut in Vincennes, Indiana, in H.M.S. Pinafore and toured in that production for several months. Miles╒s sister-in-law, Ada Dow, a veteran actress, took young Fanny Brough under her wing and tutored her in acting, with the result that she was soon promoted from the chorus to a speaking role. On her return to Cincinnati she was encouraged by her mother to find more reliable work, but after periods in a cracker factory, as a dressmaker, and as a telegrapher, she succumbed again to the lure of the stage and in 1882 toured in Rip Van Winkle. In 1884 Ada Dow took Brough to New York and for three years put her through a grueling course of training in diction, inflection, movement, gesture, interpretation, and every phase of stagecraft. A voice teacher was engaged to train her speaking voice in the manner of a singer. In 1887 she joined a repertory company organized by Colonel Miles. In a tour of New England she opened in Ingomar at the New London (Connecticut) Opera House in April 1887 under her carefully chosen stage name, Julia Marlowe. Her New York debut in the same work at the Bijou Theatre (hired by her for the occasion) in October of that year was a success, and in December she played in Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night at the Star Theatre. Marlowe turned down offers from such established producers as Charles Frohman and A. M. Palmer in order to work on her own terms, chief among which was her insistence on playing exclusively in Shakespearean dramas. But while her reputation slowly grew, her productions failed to fill the theaters, and gradually such non-Shakespearean works as The Belle╒s Stratagem and The Love Chase were added to her company╒s repertoire. In May 1894 she married her leading man, Robert Taber. Their 1895 production of King Henry IV, Part I, with Julia Marlowe as Prince Hal, was a failure, but they recouped financially by touring with Louisa Lane Drew and others in Joseph Jefferson╒s production of The Rivals in 1896. In 1898, after another financially unsuccessful season, she gave in to the Theatrical Syndicate and appeared under Charles Frohman╒s management in The Countess Valeska, winning critical and popular acclaim. Subsequent productions of As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet benefited from her success in a popular drama, and she quickly became a fixture of the American stage in Clyde Fitch╒s Barbara Frietchie, 1899, and When Knighthood Was in Flower, 1900. In the latter year she divorced Taber. Still determined to make her way in Shakespearean drama, Marlowe formed an alliance with Edward H. Sothern and in September 1904 opened with him in Romeo and Juliet in Chicago. The production was a great success there and, in October, in New York. They followed with still more successful productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. They toured in those plays and the next season added The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night. After two years under the Theatrical Syndicate╒s management they moved in 1906 to the Shubert brothers. That year some non-Shakespearean plays were tried but with little success. In London, where they opened in April 1907 in The Sunken Bell, they deeply impressed the critics with their Shakespearean interpretations, although the run as a whole was financially unsuccessful. After a season apart, during which Julia Marlowe produced and starred in Mary Johnston╒s The Goddess of Reason in February 1909, she and Sothern were reunited later that year to present Antony and Cleopatra in New York. Their annual Shakespearean tours continued with great success from that year to 1916, when Julia Marlowe╒s ill health forced her retirement. During that time, in London in August 1911, she and Sothern were married. Through those peak years Julia Marlowe was recognized as the greatest exponent of Shakespeare╒s heroines on the contemporary stage. Her beauty, grace, intelligence, training, and superb voice carried away all doubts and brought her dazzling tributes from the leading critics of the day. During World War I she and her husband appeared at war bond rallies and entertained troops. They made tours again in 1919╨1920, 1921╨1922, and 1923╨1924, with great success, and then retired permanently. They lived mainly abroad thereafter. After Sothern╒s death in October 1933 she lived in virtual seclusion. She died in New York City on November 12, 1950. µstyl ` > ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ !I ╠ !I █ !I ┐ !I ═ !I ╤ 5¬ ╥ !I V !I ] !I m !I } !I é !I Å !I º 5¬ ¿ !I !I !I !I ) !I ñ !I ╣ !I
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