The Story of My Life: Recollections and ReflectionsTerry, Ellen
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The Story of My Life: Recollections and Reflections
Terry, Ellen
Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Terry, Ellen, Dame, 1847-1928
"Miss Sarah" and I have always been able to understand one another,
although I hardly know a word of French and her English is scanty. She
too, liked my Juliet--she and Henry Irving! Well, that was charming,
although I could not like it myself, except for my "Cords" scene, of
which I shall always be proud.
My dresser, Sarah Holland, came to me, I think, during "Romeo and
Juliet." I never had any other dresser at the Lyceum except Sally's
sister Lizzie, who dressed me during the first few years. Sally stuck to
me loyally until the Lyceum days ended. Then she perceived "a divided
duty." On one side was "the Guv'nor" with "the Guv'nor's" valet Walter,
to whom she was devoted; on the other was a precarious in and out job
with me, for after the Lyceum I never knew what I was going to do next.
She chose to go with Henry, and it was she and Walter who dressed him
for the last time when he lay dead in the hotel bedroom at Bradford.
Sally Holland's two little daughters "walked on" in "Romeo and Juliet."
Henry always took an interest in the children in the theater, and was
very kind to them. One night as we came down the stairs from our
dressing-rooms to go home--the theater was quiet and deserted--we found
a small child sitting forlornly and patiently on the lowest step.
"Well, my dear, what are you doing here?" said Henry.
"Waiting for mother, sir."
"Are you acting in the theater?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what part do you take?"
"Please, sir, first I'm a water-carrier, then I'm a little page, and
then I'm a virgin."
Henry and I sat down on the stairs and laughed until we cried! Little
Flo Holland was one of the troop of "virgins" who came to wake Juliet on
her bridal morn. As time went on she was promoted to more important
parts, but she never made us laugh so much again.
Her mother was a "character," a dear character. She had an
extraordinarily open mind, and was ready to grasp each new play as it
came along as a separate and entirely different field of operations! She
was also extremely methodical, and only got flurried once in a blue
moon. When we went to America and made the acquaintance of that dreadful
thing, a "one-night stand," she was as precise and particular about
having everything nice and in order for me as if we were going to stay
in the town a month. Down went my neat square of white drugget; all the
lights in my dressing-room were arranged as I wished. Everything was
unpacked and ironed. One day when I came into some American theater to
dress I found Sally nearly in tears.
"What's the matter with you, Sally?" I asked.
"I 'aven't 'ad a morsel to heat all day, dear, and I can't 'eat my
iron."
"Eat your iron, Sally! What _do_ you mean?"
"'Ow am I to iron all this, dear?" wailed Sally, picking up my Nance
Oldfield apron and a few other trifles. "It won't get 'ot."
Until then I really thought that Sally was being sardonic about an iron
as a substitute for victuals!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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