Maude Adams

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This article is about Maude Adams, the stage actress. For the Swedish actress, see Maud Adams.

Maude Adams
Maude Adams in a 1892 portrait.
Born	Maude Ewing Kiskadden November 11, 1872(1872-11-11) Salt Lake City, Utah
Died	July 17, 1953 (aged 80) Tannersville, New York
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1888-1916

Maude Adams (born November 11, 1872; died July 17, 1953) was an American stage actress, most noted for her signature role, Peter Pan.^[1]^[2] While the title of "Best Actress of Her Day" almost indisputably belongs to Ethel Barrymore, Maude Adams was without a doubt its most beloved and most successful. To her legions of adoring fans she was best known as simply "Maudie."

1 Personal life
2 Early life and ancestry
3 Professional career
4 Maude Adams and motion pictures
5 Appearances on Broadway
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Personal life

She was born Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Asenath Ann (née Adams) and James Henry Kiskadden. Her mother was an actress and, travelling with her, Maude spent her early years in provincial theatres, sometimes appearing on plays when she was carried onstage in her mother’s arms. At the age of five, she starred in a San Francisco theatre as Little Schneider in Fritz, Our German Cousin. Her quiet, resolved, confident nature made her popular both in public and behind the scenes. She gave the impression of being refined and dignified at all times, and was openly helpful to young actors and actresses.

[edit] Early life and ancestry

Little to nothing is known of Adams' father, John Kiskadden. He died in 1878 when Maude was only six. It has been written that he came to Utah from Montana, and that the Kiskaddens originated in Ohio. He was not a Mormon, and Adams herself once wrote of her father as having been “a gentile.”

Most of what is known of her ancestry traces through her maternal grandmother, Julia Ann (Banker) Adams. The Banker family came from Plattsburgh, a small town in upstate New York. Maude's great grandfather Platt Banker converted to Mormonism, and it is said that the family migrated to Missouri with the Joseph Smith party. Whether this is true or not, the family did migrate to Missouri, where Julia married Barnabus Adams (a distant cousin of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams). The family migrated to Utah, settling in Salt Lake City where Maude's mother Asaneth Ann "Annie" Adams was born.

The true extent of Maude Adams' Mormonism remains somewhat of a mystery. It was little spoken of in her lifetime, and Adams was known to take long sabbaticals with Catholic rectories. Upon her death she made a gift of one of her homes to this same rectory. Because of this, and because her father was not a Mormon, it can be speculated that Maude was not a devout Mormon, perhaps not even a practicing one.

Maude Adams was also a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland.

[edit] Professional career

After touring in Boston and California, she made her New York City debut at age 16 as a member of E. H. Sothern's theatre company. She became a member of Charles H. Hoyt's stock company. In 1889, The powerful producer Charles Frohman then took control of her career. He requested David Belasco and Henry C. de Mille to specially write the part of Dora Prescott for her in their new 1890 play Men and Women that Frohman was producing. He then paired her with John Drew, Jr. in a series of plays beginning with The Masked Ball and ending with Rosemary in 1896, at last taking ingénue roles. She spent five years as the leading lady in John Drew's company.^[3]

Adams in The Little Minister, by J. M. Barrie

Her greatest triumphs came in the works of James M. Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows, and Peter Pan, the latter being the role with which she was most closely identified, and often repeated.

Adams last appeared on the New York stage in A Kiss For Cinderella in 1916. In 1922 she donated her estates at Lake Ronkonkoma to the Sisters of St. Regis for use as a novitiate and retreat house. Following a thirteen year retirement from the stage, during which she worked with General Electric to develop improved and more powerful stage lighting, she appeared in several regional productions of Shakespeare. She headed the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943, becoming well known as an inspiring teacher in the arts of acting.^[3]^[4]

She died, aged 80, at her summer home, Caddam Hill, in Tannersville, New York and is interred in the cemetery of the Sisters of the Cenacle, Lake Ronkonkoma, New York.

The character of Elise McKenna in Richard Matheson's 1975 novel Bid Time Return and its 1980 film adaptation Somewhere in Time, in which the character was played by Jane Seymour, was based upon her.^[5]^[6]^[7] In the novel, Elise is appearing in The Little Minister, which Barrie is said to have written especially for her.

[edit] Maude Adams and motion pictures

After her retirement in 1918, Adams was on occasion pursued for roles in film. The closest she came to accepting was in 1938, when producer David O. Selznick persuaded her to do a screen test (with film star Janet Gaynor) for the role of Miss Fortune in the film The Young in Heart. After negotiations failed, the role was played by Minnie Dupree. The twelve-minute screen test was later preserved by the George Eastman House in 2004.^[8]

It has also been written that the true reason for her association with General Electric (in developing better lighting instruments) and the Eastman Company (in developing color photography) during the 1920s was because she wished to appear in a color film version of Peter Pan, which would have required better lighting for color photography..^[9]