Davenport, Fanny (Lily Gypsy)

Davenport, Fanny [Lily Gypsy] (1850–98), actress and producer. To many observers this celebrated performer's career was precisely the opposite of that of her father, E. L. Davenport. She was adored by her public but accorded a grudging respect by fellow professionals. Born in London during her American parents' English visit, she made her stage debut shortly after their return when she played one of the children in a Boston mounting of Metamora. In 1862 she played New York for the first time, performing Charles II to her father's Ruy Gomez in Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady. Augustin Daly thought she had great promise and enlisted her in his first major ensemble. “What Daly saw in her,” his brother recalled, “besides her dazzling beauty, splendid presence, and blooming health were confidence and self‐possession.” Among her most popular roles at Daly's were Lady Gay Spanker, Maria in Twelfth Night, Lu Ten Eyck in Divorce, Lady Teazle, and Eugenia in The Big Bonanza. She also won applause for masking her beauty as the haggish Ruth Tredgett in Charity and, most of all, for her portrayal of the tormented mother Mabel Renfrew in Pique. Davenport toured successfully in the last‐mentioned role, and it apparently played a large part in her decision to assume dramatic roles instead of comic ones. After leaving Daly, four major roles occupied the remainder of her career: the determined heroine in Fedora (1883), the tragic heroine of La Tosca (1888), Cleopatra (1890), and the vengeful duchess in Gismonda (1894). All four plays were by Sardou, had been created by Bernhardt in Paris, and were produced by Davenport herself, thus markedly increasing her profits. The not entirely flattering assessment of her associates was recorded by Otis Skinner in his autobiography: “Miss Davenport was a handsome woman, her business sense keen and her industry untiring. To these qualities rather than her acting, she owed the late success in which she accumulated a fortune in her productions.”