Born in Coventry. From an acting family her stage career started at age 8. When 17 she retired from the stage to marry artist G.F. Watts, 30 years her senior. Her desire for the stage was greater than that for her husband and they separated after less than a year. She disappeared and her father misidentified a body recovered from the Thames as hers. She resurfaced to reveal that she was, aged 20, having a happy affair with the architect-designer Edward W. Godwin, which produced two children. She went on to have two more marriages, each to actors (Irving and an American 30 years her junior), but her greatest partnership was professional, with the actor/manager Henry Irving. Died at her home in Kent, Smallhythe, which is now a museum. John Gielgud was her great-nephew.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Ellen Terry
Commemorated ati
Queen's Theatre - Long Acre
Queen's Theatre The old Queen's Theatre occupied this site for just eleven y...
Other Subjects
Ben Jonson
Playwright and poet. Born in Westminster, possibly, and a committed Londoner, though also of proud Scottish descent. Imprisoned three times, once for his first play which was deemed to be "lewd, se...
Jack Buchanan
Actor-manager, song-and-dance entertainer. Born Helensburgh near Glasgow. Died in the Middlesex Hospital. His ashes were scattered from the deck of a Cunard Liner in recognition of his 50+ trans...
Vivien Leigh
Born Darjeeling, India. With her husband Laurence Olivier, she managed the St James's Theatre from 1950 to its closure in 1957. She led a vigorous but unsuccessful campaign to try and save it. Di...
Fortune Theatre - WC2
Designed by Ernest Schaufelberg, this was the first London theatre to be built after the end of WW1, and one of the first buildings in London to experiment with concrete. Named initially as the Fo...
Brixton Theatre
Theatre designed by Frank Matcham. It had a capacity of 1,504, and was home to plays, small touring productions, and Christmas pantomimes. It was renamed the Melville Theatre in 1940, but was destr...
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