Margaret Webster
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Margaret Webster (1905 - 1972) was an American-born theater actress, producer and director. Through her parents, she held dual USA/UK citizenship.
[edit] Career
Margaret Webster was born in New York City, the daughter of two famous actors, Ben Webster (actor) and Dame May Whitty. She spent the early part of her career in England, where she became well known in the theater. She worked for several established theatrical companies, including from 1929-1930 at the Old Vic[1].
She returned to the US in 1937 and began an impressive run directing the play, Richard II with Maurice Evans in the title role. They formed a partnership that lasted until 1942, with Webster directing Evans in Broadway productions of Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Henry IV, Part I. It was while she was directing Hamlet in 1938 that she began her long romantic relationship with actress Eva Le Gallienne.
When Evans joined the army, Webster continued to have success directing classical plays on Broadway, notably The Cherry Orchard (1944) starring Le Gallienne, The Tempest (1945) starring Canada Lee as Caliban, and her greatest triumph, Othello (1943), starring Paul Robeson in the title role and Jose Ferrer as Iago, which ran for 296 performances, by far the longest run of a Shakespearean production on Broadway, a record that has not been remotely approached since. She also played the role of Emilia in the production.
In 1946, Webster and Le Gallienne co-founded the American Repertory Theater with producer Cheryl Crawford, with Webster's staging of Shakespeare's Henry VIII as its premire production, starring Le Gallienne as Katherine, Walter Hampden as Cardinal Wolsey and Victor Jory in the title role. The theater operated until 1948[2][3], staging such plays as John Gabriel Borkman, Ghosts, and a legendary production of Alice in Wonderland in which Webster played the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen.
In 1948, her affair with Le Gallienne ended, and she went on tour with her company, the Margaret Webster Shakespeare Company. The tour lasted until 1951, but she left in 1950 to become the first woman to direct at the New York Metropolitan Opera. She also directed Macbeth at the New York City Opera. Her remaining years were spent in various aspects of the theater and opera, until her death from cancer in 1972, aged 67[4].
