Terry, Dame Ellen Alice (1847–1928), English actress, the second daughter of Benjamin
Terry. She made her first appearance on the stage at the age of 9, playing Mamillius in
The Winter's Tale in Charles
Kean's company at the
Princess's Theatre. She remained with the Keans until their retirement in 1859, and in the summer of that and succeeding years toured with her elder sister Kate (below) in
A Drawing-Room Entertainment, in which they played together in short sketches. In 1861 Ellen joined the company at the
Haymarket Theatre, leaving in 1864 to marry the painter G. F. Watts, an ill-judged union with a man twice her age which soon came to an end. She returned to the theatre for a time, leaving it again shortly afterwards to live with the archaeologist, architect, and theatrical designer
Edward Godwin (1833–86), by whom she had two children, Edith and Edward Gordon
Craig. When, on the insistence of Charles
Reade, she reappeared on the London stage in 1874 as Philippa in his drama
The Wandering Heir, taking over the part from Mrs John
Wood, she was as brilliant as ever, and her long absence from the theatre seemed only to have increased the excellence of her acting. After playing for a year with the
Bancrofts, she went to the
Royal Court Theatre under
Hare, playing for him one of her most successful parts, the title-role in
Olivia (1878), an adaptation of
Goldsmith's novel
The Vicar of Wakefield. Later in 1878 Henry
Irving, who had recently begun his tenancy of the Lyceum, engaged Ellen Terry as his leading lady, and so inaugurated a partnership which was to become one of the outstanding features of the London theatrical scene for the next 25 years. She appeared with him in a wide variety of parts, including a good deal of Shakespeare—notably Ophelia, Beatrice, Desdemona, Juliet, Viola, Lady Macbeth, and Imogen—in revivals of contemporary plays—
Bulwer-Lytton's The Lady of Lyons and
Selby's Robert Macaire—and in a few plays specially written for him— Wills's
Charles I (1879) and
Faust (1885), Merivale's
Ravenswood (1890), based on Scott's novel
The Bride of Lammermoor,
Tennyson's The Cup (1881) and
Becket (1893), and Comyns Carr's
King Arthur. After leaving the Lyceum Ellen Terry became manager of the
Imperial Theatre, where in 1903 she appeared in
Much Ado about Nothing and
Ibsen's The Vikings, being seen in the same year in
Heijermans's The Good Hope (for the
Stage Society), and two years later in
Barrie's Alice Sit-By-The-Fire. In 1906 she celebrated her stage jubilee with a mammoth matinée at
Drury Lane at which 22 members of the Terry family assisted. She was at the same time appearing as Lady Cicely Waynflete, a part specially written for her by Shaw in
Captain Brassbound's Conversion. She seldom acted afterwards, but toured America and Australia, giving readings of and lectures on Shakespeare. Throughout her career she was an inspiration to those who played with her. She was not at her best in tragedy, though some critics admired her Lady Macbeth, the role in which she was painted by Sargent, and she unfortunately never played Rosalind in
As You Like It which seemed, above all other parts, to have been written for her, but to a hundred other roles she imparted a freshness and vitality which was never forgotten by those who saw her.
