Born in Coventry. From an acting family her stage career started at age 8. When 17 she retired from the stage to marry artist G.F. Watts, 30 years her senior. Her desire for the stage was greater than that for her husband and they separated after less than a year. She disappeared and her father misidentified a body recovered from the Thames as hers. She resurfaced to reveal that she was, aged 20, having a happy affair with the architect-designer Edward W. Godwin, which produced two children. She went on to have two more marriages, each to actors (Irving and an American 30 years her junior), but her greatest partnership was professional, with the actor/manager Henry Irving. Died at her home in Kent, Smallhythe, which is now a museum. John Gielgud was her great-nephew.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Ellen Terry
Commemorated ati
Queen's Theatre - Long Acre
Queen's Theatre The old Queen's Theatre occupied this site for just eleven y...
Other Subjects
Sadler's Wells Theatres
From Sadler's Wells: Sadler’s Wells began with "the discovery of a mineral spring in 1683. Richard Sadler built a music house around the spring to rival the already fashionable Tunbridge and Epsom ...
Red Bull Playhouse
The inn's owner converted the inn-yard into the theatre. Parliament banned theatres in 1642 but some carried on and the Red Bull was successfully raided in 1649 and in 1655. The 1660 Restoration al...
Alastair Sim
Character actor. Born Edinburgh. Only became a professional actor aged about 30. Worked in Shakespeare at the Old Vic and then spent the 1950s making many British films, such as the 1954 The Belles...
T. S. Eliot
Poet and publisher. Born Saint Louis, Missouri as Thomas Stearns Eliot. His works include: The Waste Land, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (on which Lloyd Webber based Cats), Murder in the Cath...
Dame Sybil Thorndike
Born Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Actor. George Bernard Shaw wrote his play Saint Joan with her in mind. Created Dame of the British Empire in 1931. She was married to the actor Sir Lewis Casson. Di...