Edith Taliaferro

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Edith Taliaferro, circa 1920.

Edith Taliaferro (December 21, 1894 – March 2, 1958) was a popular Broadway actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was active on the stage until 1935 and she had roles in three silent films. She is best known for her 1913 performance in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The younger sister of Mabel Taliaferro, she was from Richmond, Virginia.

Child actress

Metropolitan Magazine January, 1899

Henry Arthur Jones once said of Taliaferro that "she was the greatest child actress." She made her acting debut at the age of two in Shore Acres with James A. Herne. It was rumored that she obtained the part because her sister Mabel was too big to depict the character. Her New York City debut came in 1896 at Miner's Theatre on Fifth Avenue, in the same play. The Harlem Opera House presented Shore Acres in October 1897. The play was beginning a sixth consecutive year with leading man Herne portraying Nathaniel Berry.

At the age of ten, in 1904, Taliaferro was paid $100 per week by George Tyler of Liebler & Company. She signed a contract for the following season to appear with Ezra Kendall. She was the youngest Shakesperean actress on the stage. She portrayed Puck in a Ben Greet production of A Midsummer Night's Dream before an audience at Princeton University in May 1904. She was lauded by professors there and they sent her a Princeton flag and pin.

By then she had performed in six to eight juvenile roles after her professional debut. When she returned to New York, Taliaferro appeared with Clara Bloodgood in The Girl With The Green Eyes. Early in her career she toured with such stars as Olga Nethersole and E. H. Sothern.

Taliaferro played a youthful ciecus rider in Polly of the Circus 1907. The setting is a small midwestern town. Like her mother before her, the character depicted by Taliaferro knows no other life than as an entertainer beneath the round top. The play, written by Frederic Thompson, was performed for more than a year at the Liberty Theater, 242 West 42nd Street. The production moved to the Wieting Theater in Syracuse, New York in November 1908.

Edith Taliaferro age 17

Mature roles

She is most noted for her 1913 performance in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. It was staged at the Republic Theater (New Victory Theater), 209 West 42nd Street. Her other successful theatrical performances include roles in Young Wisdom, Tipping The Winner, A Breath of Old Virginia, Mother Carey's Chickens, The Bestsellers, Please Get Married, Kissing Time (1920), A Love Scandal, The Evangelist, Tarnished and Private Lives. She performed in London, England and in Australia with the Toronto Theatre Guild. In vaudeville she appeared at the Palace Theater, New York, 1564 Broadway. Most of her later work was with summer theaters and on radio.

Film actress

She made motion pictures for a short time beginning with Young Romance in 1915. Taliaferro starred as Esther Field in Who's Your Brother? (1919). The genre is drama, with much suspense, surrounding a theme about immigration. It is also a love story. The film was adapted from the writing of Robert Bronson Stockbridge. Her other movie role was The Conquest of Canaan (1916). Taken from a Booth Tarkington novel, the film was shot on location in Asheville, North Carolina.

Edith Taliaferro (right), with her sister Mabel in 1913.

Death

Edith Taliaferro died after a long illness in Newtown, Connecticut in 1958, aged 63. She was married to House B. Jameson, also an actor.

Filmography

  • Who's Your Brother? (1919)
  • The Conquest of Canaan (1916)
  • Young Romance (1915)(*beautifully preserved; and on DVD)

Stageplays

  • The Hook-up [Comedy]
  • A Love Scandal [Play]
  • Fashions of 1924 [Musical]
  • Kissing Time [Musical, Comedy]
  • Please Get Married [Play]
  • Muggins [Play]
  • Mother Carey's Chickens [Play]
  • Captain Kidd, Jr. [Play]
  • Tipping the Winner [Play]
  • Young Wisdom [Comedy]
  • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm [Comedy]
  • The Evangelist [Play]
  • Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch [Comedy]
  • The Girl with the Green Eyes [Drama]
  • The Bonnie Brier Bush [Drama]
  • The Sunken Bell [Drama]

References

  • "Theater Talk". Mansfield News. April 16, 1909. p. 7. 
  • "Theatres". The New York Times. October 10, 1897. p. 5. 
  • "Ten Years Old; $100 A Week". New York Times. May 24, 1904. p. 9. 
  • "Edith Taliaferro Of Stage, Was 64". New York Times. March 3, 1958. p. 27. 
  • "Wieting-Polly of the Circus". Syracuse Herald-Journal. November 15, 1908. p. 30. 

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