Maude Adams
I find Maude most interesting.
Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden was the daughter of Annie Adams, an actress in a stock company that played in the local
Social Hall. Her first role was at the age of nine months as a stand-in when the original baby in a play was so fussy she couldn't go on. Maude filled in and did rather well, smiling and waving to the audience.
Her father wasn't too happy about her becoming an actress, but she was one of those Uppity Mormon Women and joined her mother on the stage. Since it was the tradition back then for actors and actresses with awkward names to change them, Maude adopted her mother's maiden name, Adams.
Back then, as today, it was hard growing up a child actor. She suffered a few identity problems and returned to Salt Lake for a while, where she attended college.
Later she performed on stage in California, Boston and New York. While in New York, she met a man named Charles Frohman, who would help her in her career. There are rumours, but little substantiation, that they may have had a romantic attachment. At the very least they were close friends. When he died tragically aboard the Lusitania, it dealt her a sharp blow. She never married.
As an adult, she played engenue roles where she was praised for her charm, delicacy and simplicity. The role she is best known for is the title role of James M. Barrie's
Peter Pan. Yep, she's the original Peter, and played the role so well, many of her young fans had no clue she was a woman.
As an actress, Maude was easy to work with. She never acted the diva and the of casts and crews she worked with admired her. This could have contributed her success in her career. She was not one for society and harboured no strong opinions on the issues of the day, whether it be fashion or suffrage. She just didn’t care. Her true passion was the stage and everything about it.
What a lot of people don’t know about Maude is that she was an inventor as well. At the General Electric Laboratories she experimented with color lamps for movies. She invented a high-powered incandescent lamp that later made colored movies possible. Go chica!
Maude kept her personal life closed to public scrutiny. "I don't see why an actress must give her personality to the world," she once told a newspaper reporter, "although it seems to be expected and those who curiously investigate her private life are not always careful how they use their information."
[1]One of the things that people wonder about Maude Adams was whether or not she was a lesbian. Very little of her personal documents remain, as she burned all her correspondence and more shortly before her death.
The only scrap of information that suggests she was is the statement made by one Mercedes de Acosta who claimed she had a lesbian relationship with Maude. (Then again, she claimed to have a lesbian relationship with lots of popular actresses, including Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, and apparently true) but as for her liaison with Maude, there is no proof other than de Acosta's word
[2], which was printed in 1960, after Maude Adams' death in 1953, so there was no way the late Maude could confirm or deny the rumour. (We know how truthful autobiographies are. Dare we suppose an alternate interpretation of the title, "Here
Lies the Heart"?)
For all we know, Mercedes was simply expressing out an unfulfilled fantasy. Maude was quite the handsome woman.
Now, if Maude was Sapphically inclined, she sure kept it under wraps. Well, anything romantically inclined, whether homo- or heterosexual, was kept quiet by her. Maybe she had no romantic inclinations at all, as her passion was theatre and the supposition of her connections with Frohman or de Acosta may be just that.
Interesting factlet: the character of Elise McKenna in the movie
Somewhere in Time was based on Maude Adams.
[3] If you're interested in knowing more about Maude Adams, there are lots of biographies out there.
Next Post: Ann Eliza Young A wife of Brigham Young and someone I've met.
[1] http://www.hunterchamber.org/site/firsts.htm (Original source: Davies, Acton, "Maude Adams" New York, Frederick A. Stokes company, 1901)
[2] Mercedes de Acosta, "Here Lies the Heart" (1960) ISBN 0405073607. Go look it up on Amazon if you really care.
[3]http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/maude/adams.html
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