Sentimental Sunday - Women with Hats - Big Hat & Grapes too!

Why can't I just for once post a picture without all the drama?  This week's "Women with Hats" photo is of English actress Edna Loftus (? -1916), this particular picture postcard taken before 1907.  I had never heard of Edna, but  thought to myself I'll just check her out on Wikipedia, write a short bio and be done with it.  Of course it could not be that simple!  Look at this beautiful Edwardian photo of her with the large hat, she is holding grapes in her hands and even appears to have white grapes on her hat.  She is truly a vision of loveliness.

From what little I have been able to learn about her she was an English musical comedy actress, birthday unknown.  Little is know about her early life; from this postcard which is postmarked 1907 I am going to guess her birth date somewhere between 1875 and 1885.  Her career was somewhat modest, however, her personal life was full of drama. As a young woman she went to London and joined a vaudeville-pantomime known there as the "Rein Deers" and evolved from that into a  London music hall star.  During this time her she announced her engagement to Lord Dunbarton of Manchester.  When this was called off she soon became engaged and then married to Winnie O'Connor, the famous English jockey, also famous on American tracks.  She divorced O'Connor and was said to have gone to New York City to appeared on Broadway after 1906.

Edna Loftus 1906

It was reported that while in New York in a Broadway restaurant she met Harry Rheinstrom, a younger man, and a son of a millionaire Cincinnati distiller and he was reported to have spent several thousand dollars on her in a short period of time.  When they announced their intention to marry, his family who strongly objected had her arrested, and had him admitted to a private sanitarium in Ohio.  Miss Loftus procured a writ of habeas corpus and secured Rheinstrom's release on 4 January 1910.  They crossed state lines and were married in Covington, KY on 7 Jan 1910.  He still had to face a lunacy trial through proceedings filed by his mother and have a guardian appointed.  Edna and Harry left for Los Angeles where they took up residency at a chicken farm in Boyle Heights.  After six months they returned to Cincinnati to effect a reconciliation with his mother and to try to procure his inheritance.

There were more drama to come.  She was arrested and accused of bigamy for not legally divorcing her first husband.  Her husband's parents had him readmitted to the sanitarium for his nerves.  After release from jail she went to work as as a cafe singer to pay for his expenses. His parents wanted him back, but without her.  In Dec 1910, now separated from her husband and penniless she jumped into Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to commit suicide.  She was rescued by an passing motorist.  In 1913 Rheinstrom was sent to the insane asylum at Stockton, released a year later, divorced his wife and returned to the East.

In October 1915 suffering from severe illness she tried to sue her former parents-in-law. Edna, whose career was virtually over at this time was also was facing deportation.  According to the Oakland Tribune, she was managing the Art Hotel at 883 Kearny Street, her fame long gone.  She died penniless 16 June 1916 of tuberculosis in San Francisco and was to be buried in the local potter's field until friends intervened and had her buried in Cypress Lawn Cemetery.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia

2.  New York Times

3.  http://footlightnotes.tripod.com/ArchiveTextL/EdnaLoftus.html

Sentimental Sunday - Women with Hats - Edna Wallace Hopper

I just love these two cabinet cards taken in 1898 of Edna Wallace Hopper (17 Jan 1872 or 74 - 14 Dec 1959) who was a famous American stage and silent film actress and her dog.   She was born to Walker and Josephine Wallace in either 1872 or 74, but refused to give her exact birth date and no one could find out for certain because her birth records were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  In these photographs she is wearing very typical 1890's garb while posing with her beloved dog. Her hat is quite impressive and you will notice she is wearing a long chain around her neck that appears to be a dog whistle.  Also on her hip is an object that I was quite curious about, but I found something similar today and believe it to be a vintage scent bottle (see picture). The photographer is Benjamin J. Falk (1853 - 1925), who was one of the leading celebrity photographers in New York City at that time. He opened his studio at 13 and 15 West 24th St. N.Y. Madison Square in 1892.  He also had studios at twenty-third street and Broadway (on the present site of the Flatiron Building) and the Waldorf Astoria at West 33rd Street.

vintage scent bottle

Edna was no stranger to drama in her personal life. Her father was the head night usher at the California Theatre.  According to Wikipedia, while she was still young her parents took in a wealthy boarder, Alexander Dunsmuir (1853 - 1900) co-heir to the Dunsmuir coal and shipping fortune.  Unfortunately her mother fell in love with their boarder and ran off with him and left Edna, her father and her sibling. Wally sued for divorce and Alex's parents disapproved so their marriage was on hold.  Alex apparently was an alcoholic and began to drink heavily.  In the spring of 1886 he disappeared in San Francisco on a drinking binge for ten days. After his father died in 1889 Alex bought the estate of Souther Farm now known as Dunsmuir House, near San Francisco at a cost $350,000 and deeded it to Josephine. Alex and Josephine were married on 21 Dec 1899 in California and honeymooned in New York City.  

Edna Wallace Hopper 1898 NYC

Edna had gone to New York to train for the stage. While there she had married DeWolf Hopper (1858-1935) on 28 June 1895. They appeared together in comic operas including John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, but divorced in 1898, the same year these photos were taken.  They were a somewhat mismatched couple on stage and in life; DeWolf was tall for the times at 6 foot 3 inches and Edna was less than five feet and weighed 85 pounds. By the time her mother married Alex Dunsmuir, Edna was already a star on Broadway. She met with them while they were in New York.  Unfortunately, Alex was very sick with alcohol withdrawal, worsening each day and died on New Year's Day in a New York City Hospital.  Josephine, now a widow, returned to her new San Leandro estate where she died of cancer on 22 Jun 1901.

By this time Edna had achieved great fame starring in her most famous role, Lady Holyrood in the popular London inportation Florodora.  Although she did not play one of the renowned Florodora Sextettes, she shared in the wide adulation of the many male admirers who mobbed the backstage door after each performance.  She remained very active on stage over the next decade including starring in George M. Cohen's Fifty Miles from Boston in 1907.  In 1908 she married Wall Street broker Albert O. Brown.

1910

During the 1910's and early 1920's her career slowed down but took a different direction.  She was one of the earlier stage actors to have a facelift and had the operation filmed.  Over the next eight years she made personal appearances and tours showing the film and giving beauty tips.  Over the years she would put her name on a line of products noted for keeping her youthful looks - Edna Wallace Hopper Cosmetics.  

She separated from her second husband Brown and he died in the 1930's.  She went on to become the only woman of the thirty-six member board of L. F. Rothschld & Co..  She traveled daily by subway to her office to handle investments until shortly before her death in New York City from complications of pneumonia on 14 Dec 1959 at the reported age of 94 leaving no immediate survivors.  She is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, Alameda County, California.

Sources:

1.  Wikipedia
2.  Shades of the Departed:  http://www.shadesofthedeparted.com/2011/08/todays-shades-old-photograph.html#links
3.  Find-A-Grave:  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=19073997

Mystery Monday - Gypsy Woman's Identity Solved!

Mary F. Scott-Siddons as Rosalind

Last week in my Women with Hats post,  I posted a photograph/CDV taken by Napoleon Sarony of New York of an unidentified woman wearing a gypsy-like costume.  Sarony was famous for photographing the many actors and actresses of the theater.  I was looking at vintage photos on e-Bay and typed in “actress” and as I was scrolling through them came across several photographs of my subject – Mary Frances Scott-Siddons.  She was indeed an actress; in fact she was descended from the  famous theatrical family that produced Sarah Siddons, John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble and Fanny Kemble.  Sarah Kemble Siddons (1775-1831), called the "Tragic Muse" was her great-grandmother and had a prestigious acting award named for her by the Chicago group, the Sarah Siddons Society.    Each year since 1952 the society awards the coveted Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement to a theater actor for an outstanding performance.  Some of these great actors have included Helen Hayes, Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Claudette Colbert, and too many more to mention.  The award was actually created after a reference to a fictitious award of the same name in the 1950 movie “All About Eve.”

Mary F. Scott-Siddons

As I delved into research about my subject and her famous family I unearthed almost more information than I could process.  As the story goes, her grandfather George Siddons was sent to India in 1803 at the direction of King George III as a favor to Mrs. Siddons.  According to Edwin A. Lee in “Mary Frances Scott- Siddons -A Remembrance,” King George said, “Send him to India—India—fine place—make a fortune there.”  Mary F. Scott-Siddons was born in Bengal, India in 1844 to George Siddons’ son William Young Siddons and his wife the daughter of Col. Earl. Early in life Mary demonstrated a talent for theatrical recitation.  She also strongly resembled her famous great-grandmother who died thirteen years before her birth.  At the age of sixteen she returned to England to further her education with her mother and sister after her father’s death.    At the age of eighteen as she was preparing to go on the stage she married a young naval officer named Thomas Chanter whose parents objected to his marriage into a theatrical family.  The story passed down in theater lore is that they created a last name using his mother’s name Scott and her name Siddons.

She made her acting debut using this new name in Nottingham, England in the role of Lady Macbeth, however, the role it was reported,  was not suited for her.  On April 8, 1867 at the Haymarket Theatre in London she appeared as Rosalind in “As You Like It.”  The Bell’s Life of London said of her performance, “The lady bears a striking likeness to her great ancestress, though her form and figure may be pronounced neat and graceful rather than majestic.  Her conception of a character, confessedly one of the most beautiful in the catalogue of Shakespeare’s heroines, was marked by great intelligence…..and the applause bestowed of the most enthusiastic nature.”

Mary F. Scott-Siddon,
Photographers Elliott & Fry, London

Mrs. Scott-Siddon’s first American appearance as a reader of Shakespeare and other poets in 1867-68 attracted much attention largely because of her rare beauty; her features were aquiline, her eyes large and lustrous, her figure slender.  She appeared at the Boston Museum and  made her metropolitan debut on the dramatic stage as Rosalind at the New York Theater on November 30, 1868. The picture I posted last week has been reported to be from her role as Rosalind, a role she performed in repeated engagements. The criticism from this performance as reported in the New York Tribune was for the most part complimentary, “She is not a great actress, but she is largely gifted with talents, and more that all, with that spark of vital earnestness which makes talent magnetic.  While in New York she also appeared in “Romeo and Juliet,” “Taming of the Shrew,” and “King Rene’s Daughter.”  Upon her next engagement in New York in October of 1869 she appeared as Viola in “Twelfth Night.”  The Daily Times gave a pleasant review in part saying, “She infused into the part a sprightliness, a fascination, an arch humor and at times, a subtlety and delicacy of appreciation that were truly delightful and proved her to be a genuine daughter of Kemble.”

According to the New York Times (obituary) “her theatrical experiences in this country lasted a number of years and were presumably profitable.  As an actress, however, her style was amateurish and her manner cold……For a number of years the sales of her photographs were very large.  She was a remarkably good subject for the camera.”

Thomas & Mary Scott-Siddons 

According to Edwin A. Lee who personally knew the Scott-Siddons, she worshiped at the shrine of Thespis" and her husband Captain “Scott" was a votary of “Bacchus” which caused them to separate and which also most likely caused his death probably sometime in the late 1870’s.  After a long absence from America Mrs. Scott-Siddons returned to this country in the early 1890’s and resided for a while in New York.  After one failed attempt at acting at Palmer’s Theatre in a version of Augier’s “L’Aventuriere”   she was no longer seen in the public eye.  She died in Paris on 19 Nov, 1896 at the age of fifty-two.

Sources:

1.  New York Times, Obituary, Mrs. Scott-Siddons, Published: November 20, 1896.

2.  Wikipedia

3.  Mary Frances Scott-Siddons - A Remembrance by Edwin A. Lee, The Muse Volume Edited by Charles Elston Nixon, The Philharmonic Co, 1903, Pub. Monthly by Arthur B. McCoid, New York (Google e-book).

4.   www.kemblefamily.com
5.  Folger Shakespeare Library
6.  The Broadway League, 
7.  Meserve-Kundhart Foundation