Actors - Maude Adams

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	Actors - Maude Adams

Maude Adams (born November 11, 1872; died July 17, 1953) was an American stage actress, most noted for her signature role, Peter Pan.

Personal Life

She was born Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City, Utah, the child of Mormons James Kisadden and his wife, Annie Adams, who acted under her maiden name. Maude joined her mother onstage at the age of nine months, and was soon traveling about the West with her mother in a group of traveling players, adopting her mother's maiden name as a stage name. At age 5, she appeared in Fritz in San Francisco. She returned to Salt Lake City to attend the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, living with her grandmother.

She was a lesbian, a well known fact in acting circles, but well concealed as was the way in those days. Allegedly preferring women younger than she, Adams had a brief affair with actress Spring Byington, another more meaningful relationship with actress Katharine Cornell, and a reportedly passionate yet brief affair with actress Eva Le Gallienne. Two of her most noted lovers was poet and writer Mercedes de Acosta, and actress Alla Nazimova.

Professional career

After touring in Boston and California, she made her New York City debut at age 16 as a member of E. H. Sothern's theatre company. She became a member of Charles H. Hoyt's stock company and then, in 1889, of Charles Frohman's, at last taking ingénue roles. She spent five years as the leading lady in John Drew's company.

Her greatest triumphs came in the works of James M. Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows, and Peter Pan, the latter being the role with which she was most closely identified, and often repeated.

Adams last appeared on the New York stage in A Kiss For Cinderella in 1916. In 1917 she donated her estates at Lake Ronkonkoma to the Sisters of St. Regis for use as a novitiate and retreat house. Following a thirteen year retirement from the stage, during which she worked with General Electric to develop improved and more powerful stage lighting, she appeared in several regional productions of Shakespeare. She headed the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943.

She died, aged 80, at her summer home, Caddam Hill, in Tannersville, New York and is interred in the cemetery of Cenacle Convent, Lake Ronkonkoma, New York.

The character of Elise McKenna in the 1980 film Somewhere in Time, played by Jane Seymour, was based upon her.

Appearances on Broadway

Lord Chumley - 1888
A Midnight Belle - 1889
Men and Women - 1890
The Masked Ball - 1892
The Butterflies - 1894
The Imprudent Young Couple - 1895
Christopher, Jr. - 1895
Rosemary - 1896
The Little Minister - 1897
L'Aiglon - 1900
Quality Street - 1901
The Pretty Sister of Jose - 1903
The Little Minister - 1904
'Op o' Me Thumb - 1905
Peter Pan – 1905, 1906, 1912, 1915
Quality Street - 1908
The Jesters - 1908
The-Merry-Go-Round - 1908
What Every Woman Knows - 1908
Chantecler - 1911
The Little Minister - 1916
A Kiss for Cinderella - 1916

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Maude Adams ]

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Actors - Maude Adams

Personal Life

Professional career

Appearances on Broadway

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