Maude Fealy
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Maude Fealy (March 4, 1881 - November 9, 1971) was an American stage and film actor.
Born Maude Hawk in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of actress and acting coach Margaret Fealy. Her mother remarried to Rafaello Cavallo, the first conductor of the Pueblo, Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Maude Fealy lived in Colorado off and on for most of her life. At the age of three, she performed on stage with her mother and went on to make her Broadway debut in the 1900 production of Quo Vadis, again with her mother. Between 1902 and 1905 she frequently toured with Sir Henry Irving's company in the United Kingdom and by 1907 was the star in touring productions in the United States.
[edit] Personal life
In Denver she met a drama critic from a local newspaper named Lewis Hugo Sherwin. The two married in secret because, as they expected, her domineering mother did not approve. The marriage soon ended in separation and a 1909 divorce following which she immediately married actor James Peter Durkin. That marriage also ended in divorce in 1917, and Fealy became involved in a lesbian love affair with actress Eva Le Gallienne. It was short lived, and soon after this Fealy married again to James E. Cort. This third marriage also ended in a 1923 annulment and would be her last. Rumors indicate that Fealy was lesbian, but that has never been confirmed beyond a doubt. Lesbianism was common in early Hollywood circles.
[edit] Career and Retirement
Maude Fealy appeared in her first silent film in 1911 for Thanhouser Studios, making another eighteen between then and 1917 after which she did not perform in film for another fourteen years. After leaving film, she organized a theatre company that put on performances at the Lakeside Theatre in Denver and the following year began touring the western half of the U.S. By the 1930s she was living in Los Angeles where she became involved in the Federal Theatre Project and at age 50 returned to secondary roles in film. She continued to appear in film and perform on stage for most of the remainder of her life.
Maude Fealy died in 1971 at the age of ninety at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California and was interred in the Abbey of the Psalms Mausoleum at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood.
