Jordan, Dorothy

Jordan, Dorothy [ Dorothea] Jordan (1761–1816), English actress, who excelled as high-spirited hoydens and in breeches parts (see MALE IMPERSONATION). She was the illegitimate daughter of an actress by a gentleman named Francis Bland; her brother, also an actor, called himself George Bland (?–1807), but she made her first appearance in Dublin in 1777 as Miss Francis. In 1780 she was engaged by Daly for the Smock Alley Theatre, but two years later, after being seduced by him, she fled secretly to England with her mother and sister. There she was befriended by Tate Wilkinson. On his advice, since she was clearly pregnant, she changed her name to Mrs Jordan, though she was never married. In 1785, probably on the recommendation of William (‘Gentleman’) Smith, who saw and admired her at York during race week, she was engaged by Sheridan for Drury Lane, and in spite of the preferences of audiences of the time for tragedy in the style of Mrs Siddons (who was also in the company, and for a time thought poorly of her acting), she chose to make her début as Peggy in Garrick's The Country Girl. She was immediately successful and, wisely abandoning tragedy altogether, continued to delight audiences in such parts as Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp, in which character she was painted by Romney, as well as Miss Hoyden in Sheridan's A Trip to Scarborough, Sir Harry Wildair in Farquhar's The Constant Couple, and Miss Prue in Congreve's Love for Love. Early in her career at Drury Lane Mrs Jordan became entangled with a young man by whom she had four children, leaving him in 1791 to become the mistress of the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, by whom she had 10 children. She continued to act intermittently; she was in the company which performed Ireland's Shakespeare forgery Vortigern and Rowena (1796) at Drury Lane, and in 1800 she appeared as Lady Teazle in Sheridan's The School for Scandal. She parted from the Duke, to whom she had been a faithful and affectionate companion, in 1811 when he had perforce to make a dynastic marriage. Her last appearances in London were in 1814, when she was seen in a revival of As You Like It and in a new play by James Kenney, Debtor and Creditor. After a final appearance at Margate she retired to Paris, where she died in poverty. Her grave was swept away during rebuilding in the early 1930s.