Oh dear me — it's too late to do anything but accept you and love you — but when you were quite a little boy, somebody ought to have said "hush" just once!
Letter to George Bernard Shaw (1 November 1912) published in Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1952), p. 52; this was later used in the play Dear Liar : A Biography in Two Acts (1960) by Jerome Kilty, an adaptation of the correspondence between Shaw and Campbell.
The deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-lounge.
Quoted in Alexander Woollcott, “The First Mrs. Tanqueray,” While Rome Burns (1934)
She has such pretty little eyes — And they're so close together!
Comment about actress Norma Shearer|Norma Shearer, quoted in They Had Faces Then: Super Stars, Stars, and Starlets Of The 1930's (1974) by John Shipman Springer and, Jack D. Hamilton, p. 54
Mrs Patrick Campbell (9 February 1865 – 9 April 1940) was a British stage actress.
Early life and marriages
Campbell was born
Beatrice Stella Tanner in
KensingtonKensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
,
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini. She studied for a short time at the Guildhall School of Music.
Her first marriage, from which she took the name by which she is generally known, produced two children, Alan Urquhart ('Beo') and Stella, and ended with the death of her first husband in the
Boer WarThe Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
in 1900.
Fourteen years later, Campbell became the second wife of
George Cornwallis-WestGeorge Frederick Myddleton Cornwallis-West was a British officer of the Scots Guards. He was the only son of Col. William Cornwallis-West and his wife Mary, née FitzPatrick . The family moved in aristocratic circles but did not have a great deal of wealth...
, a dashing writer and
soldierA soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
previously married to Jennie Jerome, the mother of Sir
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
.
Stage career
Already well-known as an amateur, Campbell made her professional stage debut in 1888 at the
Alexandra TheatreThe New Alexandra Theatre, commonly known as The Alex, is a theatre on Station Street in Birmingham, England.Construction of the theatre commenced in 1900 and was completed in 1901. The architects were Owen & Ward. The theatre was opened on 27 May 1901 as the Lyceum Theatre on John Bright Street;...
,
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, four years after her marriage to Patrick Campbell. In March, 1890, she appeared in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at the
AdelphiThe Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
, where she afterward played again in 1891–93. She became successful as a result of starring in Sir
Arthur Wing PineroSir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...
's play,
The Second Mrs TanquerayThe Second Mrs. Tanqueray is a problem play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. It adopts the "Woman with a past" plot, popular in nineteenth century melodrama.-Plot:...
, in 1893, at St. James's Theatre where she also appeared in 1894 in
The MasqueradersThe Masqueraders is a 1928 novel written by Georgette Heyer. It is set in Britain at a time shortly after the 1745 Jacobite Rising and is concerned with a family of escaped Jacobites.-Plot summary:...
. As Kate Cloud in
John-a-Dreams, produced by
Beerbohm TreeSir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
at the
HaymarketThe Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
in 1894, she made another success, and again as Agnes in
The Notorious Mrs. EbbsmithThe Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith is a play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero. It was first produced on 13 March 1895, with Mrs Patrick Campbell playing the lead role of Agnes Ebbsmith. The theme of the play is social radicalism...
at the
GarrickThe Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...
(1895).
Among her other performances were those in
FédoraFédora is a play by the French author Victorien Sardou. The first production in 1882 starred Sarah Bernhardt in the title role of Princess Fédora Romanoff. She wore a soft felt hat in that role which was soon a popular fashion for women; the hat became known as a Fedora....
(1895),
Little EyolfLittle Eyolf is an 1894 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play was first performed on January 12, 1895 in the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.-Plot:...
(1896), and her notable performances with
Forbes-RobertsonSir Johnston Forbes-Robertson was an English actor and theatre manager. He was considered the finest Hamlet of the nineteenth century and one of the finest actors of his time, despite his dislike of the job and his lifelong belief that he was temperamentally unsuited to acting.-Early life:Born in...
at the
LyceumThe Lyceum Theatre is a 2,000-seat West End theatre located in the City of Westminster, on Wellington Street, just off the Strand. There has been a theatre with this name in the locality since 1765, and the present site opened on 14 July 1834 to a design by Samuel Beazley. The building was unique...
in the rôles of
JulietJuliet is one of the title characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the other being Romeo. She is the daughter of old Capulet, head of the house of Capulet. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself....
in
Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, Ophelia in
HamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, and
Lady MacbethLady Macbeth is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Macbeth . She is the wife to the play's protagonist, Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman. After goading him into committing regicide, she becomes Queen of Scotland, but later suffers pangs of guilt for her part in the crime...
(1895–98) in "
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
".
Once established as a major star, Campbell also assisted in the early careers of some noted actors, such as
Gerald Du MaurierSir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was an English actor and manager. He was the son of the writer George du Maurier and brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1902, he married the actress Muriel Beaumont with whom he had three daughters: Angela du Maurier , Daphne du Maurier and Jeanne...
and
George ArlissGeorge Arliss was an English actor, author and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.-Life and career:...
.
In 1900, Mrs. Pat, having become her own Manager/Director, made her debut performance on
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in
Magda, a marked success. Subsequent appearances in New York and on tour in the United States established her as a major theatrical presence in America. Campbell would regularly perform on the New York stage until 1933.
Further noteworthy performances included
The Joy of LivingThe Joy of Living is a 1961 Italian-French comedy film directed by René Clément. It was entered into the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Alain Delon - Ulysse Cecconato* Barbara Lass - Franca Fossati* Gino Cervi - Olinto Fossati...
(1902), as
MelisandeMelisande can refer to:* Melisande of Jerusalem, the daughter of Baldwin II* Melisande , a painting* Melisande Shahrizai, the primary villainess of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series...
to the
PelleasPelleas is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. His story first appears in the Post-Vulgate Cycle. There, Pellias is the son of a poor vavasour who seeks the love of the high-born maiden, Arcade or Archade...
of her close friend
Sarah BernhardtSarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
in
Pelléas et MélisandePelléas and Mélisande is a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. It was first performed in 1893....
(1904),
Hedda GablerHedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
(1907),
ElectraHugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
(1908),
The ThunderboltThe Thunderbolt is a 1912 American silent short drama starring William Garwood, James Cruze, David Thompson, Jean Darnell and Mignon Anderson.-Cast:* James Cruze as The Dishonest Broker* Mignon Anderson as The Broker's Daughter, as an Adult...
(1908),
Lady Patricia (1911) and
Bella Donna (1911)
Despite her second marriage, to George Cornwallis-West, she continued to use the stage name "Mrs Patrick Campbell".
In 1914, Mrs Pat played Eliza Doolittle in the original West End production of
PygmalionPygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
which
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
had expressly written for her. Although forty-nine when she originated the role opposite the Henry Higgins of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she triumphed as the young flower girl and took the play to New York and on tour in 1915. She successfully played Eliza again in a 1920 London revival of the play.
A couple of Campbell's later significant performances were as the title role in the 1922 West End production of
Henrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's play
Hedda GablerHedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama...
and Mrs. Alving in the 1928 "Ibsen Centennial" staging of the play
GhostsGhosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....
(with
John GielgudSir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
performing as her son Oswald).
Mrs Pat's last major stage role was in the Broadway production of Ivor Novello's play
A Party where she portrayed the cigar-smoking, pekinese wielding actress "Mrs. MacDonald" - a clear takeoff on her own well known persona - and made off with the best reviews.
In her later years, Campbell made notable appearances in motion pictures, including
One More RiverOne More River is a 1934 film directed by James Whale. It was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures and starred Diana Wynyard. The film is based on a novel by John Galsworthy.-Cast:*Diana Wynyard - Claire Corven*Frank Lawton - Tony Croom...
(1934),
Riptide (1934), and
Crime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment is a 1935 film directed by Josef von Sternberg for Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was adapted by Joseph Anthony and S.K. Lauren from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel of the same title...
(1935).
Mrs Pat's impolitic behavior in Hollywood and her tendency to reject roles that could have vitally helped her career in later years caused Alexander Woollcott to declare that "...she was like a sinking ship firing on the rescuers".
Relationship with George Bernard Shaw
In the late 1890s Campbell first became aware of
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
- the famous and feared dramatic critic for "The Saturday Review" - who lavishly praised her better performances and thoroughly criticized her lesser efforts. Shaw had already used her as inspiration for some of his plays before their first meeting in 1897 when he unsuccessfully tried to persuade Mrs Pat to play the role of Judith Anderson in the first production of his play
The Devil's DiscipleThe Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist, George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright...
. But it was not until 1912 when they began negotiations for the London production of
PygmalionPygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
that Shaw developed the infatuation for Mrs. Pat that resulted in a passionate, yet unconsummated, love affair of mutual fascination and a legendary exchange of letters. It was Campbell who broke off the relationship even though Shaw was about to direct her in
PygmalionPygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
. While they remained friends in spite of the break and her subsequent marriage to George Cornwallis-West, George Bernard Shaw never again allowed Mrs. Pat to originate any of the roles he had written with her in mind (e.g. Hesione Hushabye (
Heartbreak HouseHeartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety...
), the Serpent (
Back to MethuselahBack to Methuselah , by George Bernard Shaw consists of a preface and a series of five plays: In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 , The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day, The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170, Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000, and As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D...
), etc.,) and was thought by many to be using his play
The Apple CartThe Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. It is satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are expounded by the characters, often in lengthy monologue...
and the character of King Magnus' platonic mistress Orinthia to air his personal disappointment in their relationship.
In later years, Shaw refused to allow the impoverished Campbell to publish or sell any of their letters except in heavily edited form, for fear of upsetting his wife
Charlotte Payne-TownshendCharlotte Payne-Townshend was a British political activist. She was a member of the Fabian Society and was dedicated to the struggle for women's rights....
and the possible harm that the letters might cause to his public image. Most of the letters were not published until 1952, two years after Shaw's death.
When Anthony Asquith was preparing to produce the 1938 film of
Pygmalion, Shaw suggested Mrs Pat for the role of Mrs Higgins. She declined.
Famous quote
Campbell was infamous for her sharp wit. Her most well known remark, uttered upon hearing about an indiscreet relationship, was "My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses"
Death
She died on 9 April 1940 in Pau, France, aged 75.
Her death was one of the few deaths of a personal nature that George Bernard Shaw ever noted in his personal diaries.
Legacy
A note book belonging to Campbell is housed at the
University of BirminghamThe University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
Special Collections department.
See also
- My Life And Some Letters by Mrs Patrick Campbell.
- Walkley
Arthur Bingham Walkley was an English dramatic critic, born in Bristol, and educated at Balliol and Corpus Christi colleges, Oxford. He held important positions in the British postal service, but it was by his dramatic criticism that he became known over the English-speaking world to all...
, Drama and Life (London, 1907)
- Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, Dramatic Opinions (London, 1907)
- Archer
William Archer , Scottish critic, was born in Perth, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M.A. in 1876. He was the son of Thomas Archer....
, The Theatrical World (London, 1897)
- Mrs. Pat: The Life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell by Margot Peters (New York, 1984)
- The Truth About Pygmalion by Richard Huggett (Random House, 1969)
- Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell: Their Correspondence edited by Alan Dent (Alfred A Knopf, 1952)
External links