Laurette Taylor
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Laurette Taylor (April 1, 1884 – December 7, 1946) was an American actress, primarily on stage, with some forays into silent film. She is considered by many a leading figure of the twentieth century theater. Major roles include the title character in Peg O' My Heart and the indomitable but deluded Southern matriarch Amanda Wingfield in the original Broadway production of the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie, a legendary performance that marked one of the most dramatic comebacks in theater history.
[edit] Personal History
Laurette Taylor was most likely born Helen Loretta Cooney (although other possible birth names have been suggested) in New York City of Irish Catholic extraction.
She married her first husband, Charles A. Taylor, around 1900, and they had two children, Dwight and Marguerite, but they divorced around 1910. In 1912 she married British-born playwright J. Hartley Manners, who wrote Peg o' My Heart, a major and enduring personal triumph for Taylor, who toured in it extensively throughout the country. Based upon the popular novel by Mary O'Hara, the play's success inspired a 1922 film version starring Taylor and directed by King Vidor. A six-reel print of the film survives in the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress.
Taylor remained married to Manners until his death in 1928. She never remarried and several authors have stated that she was bisexual, her lovers including legendary stars Alla Nazimova and Tallulah Bankhead, and film director Dorothy Arzner.[citation needed]
[edit] Becoming a Theatrical Legend
Taylor began attracting critical acclaim virtually from her first known performance on Broadway in The Great John Ganton in 1908 and building her reputation in such stage productions as The Ringmaster, Alias Jimmy Valentine, Seven Sisters, Lola, and The Bird of Paradise. Peg O' My Heart, which ran on Broadway from December 20, 1912 to May of 1914 -- for a total of 603 performances -- cemented her fame and reputation as a performer of dazzling skill who aroused strong audience empathy. She toured the nation with the play, which proved so popular, it reopened on Broadway at the Cort Theater on February 14, 1921 and ran for another 692 performances. She achieved great success starring in such other productions as Out There, One Night in Rome, The Wooing of Eve and the special production Laurette Taylor in Scenes From Shakespeare. In the latter production, she performed scenes from Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the Shrew. Prominent critics of the era outdid each other in praising her prodigious gifts, versatility, and beauty.
It is unfortunate that so little of Taylor's greatness got preserved on film. In 1924, Taylor starred in the film version of another theatrical success by her husband Manners. Happiness, directed by King Vidor, told of the adventures of a young shopgirl named "Jenny Wray," who learns that riches do not necessarily lead to happiness. The cast included Hedda Hopper and Pat O'Malley. The same year, Taylor starred in another screen version of Manners' dramatic play One Night In Rome, in which she played the dual roles of Duchess Mareno/Madame Enigme.
Taylor's outsized personality, mercurial moods, and eccentricities were the stuff of legend. Her friend Noel Coward spent a weekend at the home of Taylor and, inspired by that remarkable visit wrote, in just three days, his devastating, witty comedy of manners Hay Fever (1925). The play, a widely-praised comedic dissection of a family whose theatrical excesses drive to distraction their unsuspecting visitors, was a major hit from the moment of its August 6, 1925 debut. It also caused a serious and permanent rift in the friendship of Taylor and Coward.
Laurette Taylor suffered from severe alcoholism for many years, a condition which sharply limited her appearances from the late 1920s throughout her career. In 1938, she headed the cast in a revival of Outward Bound and did not appear again until her reemergence in Menagerie in 1945, a performance that received rapturous acclaim. Alcoholism almost certainly contributed to her death from a coronary thrombosis at the relatively young age of 62.
[edit] Revered By Acting Giants
Writing after Taylor's death, Tennessee Williams paid tribute to "the great warmth of her heart," saying, "There was a radiance about her art which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us." [1]
In 1960, the play Laurette, starring Judy Holliday and directed by Jose Quintero, closed out of town in Philadelphia due to Holliday's illness. Produced by Alan Pakula, the play had a supporting cast that included Patrick O'Neal, Joan Hackett, and Nancy Marchand. For years, film director George Cukor tried unsuccessfully to launch a film version of Taylor's life. Among the actresses who declined the role were Elizabeth Taylor. The project foundered, largely because of Cukor's inability to find a star that could match Laurette Taylor's brilliance, range and complexity.
In the 2004 documentary Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There, several Broadway veterans such as Harold Prince, Charles Durning, Uta Hagen, Marion Seldes, Kaye Ballard, Maureen Stapleton, and Gena Rowlands nearly unanimously rank Taylor's stage performances as the most memorable of their entire lives. A rare film clip of Taylor in a screen test made for the David O. Selznick studio is included in the documentary. The test, for a role in a film directed by George Cukor, did not meet the approval of studio executives who apparently could not appreciate Taylor's gift for understatement and thrilling "ordinariness." Among the greatest admirers of her talents was Spencer Tracy, who corresponded with her and emulated her apparently "artless" and naturalistic artistry.
Her great grand-daughter Chloe Taylor is currently an actress in Los Angeles.
