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
Jack Buchanan
Actor-manager, song-and-dance entertainer. Born Helensburgh near Glasgow. Died in the Middlesex Hospital. His ashes were scattered from the deck of a Cunard Liner in recognition of his 50+ trans...
Sir Henry Taylor
Born Bishop Middleham, County Durham. Poet, playwright and public servant. He went to sea as a young man, but after finding it did not agree with his health, took up a position in the Treasury. H...
Person, Poetry, Politics & Administration, Race Issues, Theatre
Edmund Payne
Actor, comedian and singer. Born in Hackney. He used his short stature and malleable features to create a popular comic persona. On stage he was often partnered by George Grossmith junior. See ther...
Ira Aldridge
Actor. Born Ira Frederick Aldridge in New York City (his date of birth is approximate). He started his acting career with the African Company in the early 1820s, but faced with racial discriminatio...
Frances (Fanny) Burney
Born King's Lynn, Norfolk, father was Dr Charles Burney. Diarist, novelist: Evelina (1778), Cecelia (1782), Camilla (1796) and playwright. Her first novel, Evelina, was a big success and she ent...
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Stanley Howard Burton
Stanley served in the RAF during WW2. The Burtons were philanthropic and in Leeds there is a gallery and a theatre named "Stanley & Audrey Burton" so we think he may have married an Audrey. W...
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