Pauline Cushman

Pauline Cushman 1835-93, Union spy in the Civil War, b. New Orleans. She became an actress at 18 in New York City. In 1863 she was banished to Confederate lines as a supposed Southern sympathizer, when in reality she had already performed valuable services for Union intelligence in Louisville and Nashville. Captured with compromising papers upon her, she was taken to Gen. Braxton Bragg, court-martialed, and sentenced to be hanged. However, in the hasty departure (June, 1863) of the Confederates from Shelbyville, Tenn., she was left behind and was thus able, for the last time, to help the Union cause with information about Confederate strength and plans. Dressed in a Union uniform, she lectured afterward about her experiences. Her later life was unhappy, and she committed suicide in San Francisco.

Cushman, Charlotte [Saunders] (1816–76), actress. A relatively tall, burly, homely woman, she is generally acknowledged as the first great tragedienne of the American stage. Born in Boston and descended from several old, distinguished New England families, she is believed to have been self‐educated. Cushman had intended to become an opera singer, but when her singing voice gave out she turned to acting, making her debut in New York in 1835 as Lady Macbeth, a role afterward considered among her finest. She caused a stir in 1837 when she essayed Romeo, thus displaying early on a penchant for men's roles that persisted almost until the end of her career. That same year she first performed the role much of her public most admired her for, Meg Merrilies in the popular dramatization of Guy Mannering. Mary Anderson recalled, “When, in the moonlight of the scene, she dashed from her tent on to the stage, covered with the gray, shadowy garments of the gypsy sibyl, her appearance was ghost‐like and startling in the extreme. In her mad rushes on and off stage she was like a cyclone. . . . When Dick Hatterick's fatal bullet entered her body, and she came staggering down the stage, her terrible shriek, so wild and piercing, so full of agony and yet of the triumph she had given her life to gain, told the whole story of her love and her revenge.” In the fall of 1837 she became a member of the Park Theatre Company, where her roles included Goneril, Emilia, and Volumnia to Edwin Forrest's Coriolanus. She first played another of her famous roles, Nancy Sykes in Oliver Twist, in 1839. “The horror of her death scene was unmatched,” Odell recorded years later. In 1841 she was the first American Lady Gay Spanker. After briefly managing Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, Cushman performed with Macready in 1844. He saw in her a fine but imperfect actress, so advised her to improve her art in London, where she spent the next several years. When she returned to America in 1852 she had added one more of her celebrated interpretations, Katherine in Shakespeare's Henry VIII, and another of her controversial portrayals of men: Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons. She continued to play actively until 1857, when she announced her “farewell” tour, the first of several of these during her career, bringing her a share of unnecessary ridicule. Her repertory was extensive, including Beatrice, Rosalind, Bianca, and Pauline (in The Lady of Lyons) as well as important roles in contemporary plays. She also continued to play men's parts, eventually adding Hamlet and Cardinal Wolsey to her list. Her last New York appearance was as Lady Macbeth in 1874. During her final years age and ill health plagued her, so she often abandoned traditional acting in favor of readings. Although there was little dissent about the greatness of her acting, especially in serious and tragic roles, some controversy exists about her personality. Most published recollections are highly favorable, recalling her consideration and charity, but several associates remember her peculiarly masculine hardness and her occasional slugging of performers who annoyed her. In 1907 a club was established in Philadelphia as a hostel for traveling actresses and gathering place for theatrical aficionados. Named in her honor, it houses a collection of her personal memorabilia. Biography: Bright Particular Star, Joseph Leach, 1970.

Princess's Theatre, London, in Oxford Street. After the passing of the Licensing Act of 1843, the Princess's Theatre, which had opened in 1840 for concerts and later been used as an opera-house, was used for plays, Charlotte Cushman making her London début there in Macbeth, with Edwin Forrest, in 1845. A number of famous actors were seen briefly until Charles Kean took over, opening in 1850 with Twelfth Night. Kean's management was memorable, both for his productions of Shakespeare and for his success in adapting French drama to suit English audiences. Among his most popular productions in this field were Oxenford's Pauline (1851), Boucicault's The Corsican Brothers (1852) and Louis XI (1855), and Charles Reade's The Courier of Lyons (1854) (better known as The Lyons Mail). It was during a spectacular revival of Henry VIII that limelight (see LIGHTING) was used for the first time in the theatre. In 1856 Ellen Terry, then 9 years old, made her first appearance on the stage as Mamillius in The Winter's Tale, her elder sister Kate being already a member of the company. Kean left the Princess's in 1859 after appearing once more as Wolsey, one of his finest parts, and Augustus Harris took over. Under him Henry Irving made his first appearance in London in Oxenford's Ivy Hall and then returned to the provinces. A year later Fechter appeared in Hugo's Ruy Blas, and as Hamlet, with great success. Boucicault's melodramas, including The Streets of London (1864), revived many times under many names, and Arrahna-Pogue (1865), were followed by Charles Reade's It's Never Too Late to Mend, whose first night on 4 Oct. 1865 caused a riot because of the realistic flogging of a boy in the prison scene. The fortunes of the theatre then gradually declined, one of the few successes being scored by Warner in Reade's Drink (1879), based on Zola's L'Assommoir. Out of the profits from this production the management decided to rebuild the theatre, which was demolished in 1880. The new Royal Princess's opened six months later with Edwin Booth as Hamlet. Wilson Barrett later took over, and under him Sims's The Lights o’ London (1881) and Henry Arthur Jones and Herman's The Silver King (1882) had long runs. But there were many failures, and in 1902 the theatre closed. Three years later it became a warehouse, and in 1931 it was demolished.