Campbell, Mrs Patrick

Campbell, Mrs Patrick [née Beatrice Stella Tanner] (1865–1940), English actress, who through her devastating wit and marked eccentricities became a legend in her lifetime. She made her first appearance in London in 1890 in Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, and was already well known when she created the parts of Paula in The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) and Agnes in The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1895), both by Pinero. In 1895 she was also seen in the title-role of Sardou's Fédora, and after playing Juliet to Forbes-Robertson's Romeo in the same year created the title-role in Magda (1896; NY, 1902), the English version of Sudermann's Heimat (1893). In 1898 she appeared as Mélisande in the English version of Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande, repeating the role in French in 1904 to the Pelléas of Sarah Bernhardt; in 1907 she was Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. George Bernard Shaw, who called her ‘perilously bewitching’, wrote for her the part of Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1914) and exchanged letters with her over a long period. (Their correspondence was published after his death, and formed the basis of Jerome Kilty's dramatic dialogue Dear Liar, 1959.) Much of Mrs Campbell's later career was spent in revivals of her earlier successes. In spite of long and frequent absences from the stage, and a temperament which rendered her somewhat difficult to deal with, she was one of the outstanding stage personalities of her generation.