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Louise Paullin (1848 – 18 April 1910), sometimes seen as Louisa Paullin , was an American stage actress.
In March 1857, as a member of John S. Potter’s company, she appeared at Columbia in “her favourite character Little Pickle” in the two-act burletta The Spoiled Child, and was “said to be one of the most interesting and promising children on the stage”.“Theatrical”, Weekly Columbian, 14 March 1857, p. 2. Immediately afterwards, when the Paullins toured to entertain mining settlements in the Stockton neighbourhood, it was reported that Louise was “the star character... and a better and more faithful delineator of childhood passion is seldom found”, while the “unaffected sweetness of her beautiful countenance” was “worth a dollar a minute to look at”. Stockton Independent, 14 and 28 March 1857, p. 2. She was one of the few personalities whom the veteran actor Walter Leman could later recall from time spent in California during this period. In September 1857 Leman’s performance in J. R. Planche’s The Ransom at the Forrest Theatre was followed by Louisa Paullin singing “Shells of the Ocean” and dancing the Highland Fling: Sacramento Daily Union, 19 September 1857, p. 3.
In October 1858 some of San Francisco’s most prominent citizens (including E. W. Burr, Thomas O. Larkin and Samuel Purdy) sponsored a benefit performance for “the talented” Louise in the role of “Little Eva” in a Tom show at Maguire’s Opera House, then the city’s principal theatre.“Complimentary Benefit to Miss Louisa Paullin”, Daily Alta California, 14 October 1858, p. 2. She was described as having “often excited her audience to tears” in this role when, in the following year, she made national headlines by running away with a man in his twenties formerly employed by her father and dismissed for displaying inappropriate intimacy towards Louise.
The 11-year-old girl was recognised while travelling on a steamer from San Francisco, bound for Panama, and was taken off the vessel at Acapulco and restored to her parents. In the following month it was announced that her father had removed her from the stage. This came at a particularly inopportune moment for the family: James Paullin had been entirely incapacitated (and was left permanently lame) after breaking a leg some months earlier and Louisa’s earnings of about four dollars a day at the Union Theatre were largely supporting the family. Trinity Journal, 24 December 1859, p. 3; Daily Alta California, 21 October 1859.
In 1862 she was travelling with the Backus troupe when the horses drawing the light stage wagon in which she was a passenger broke loose on a downhill run and, in attempting to leap from the vehicle, Louise caught her leg in a wheel and was dragged along for some distance. She survived with no more than serious bruising.“Stage Accident”, Marysville Daily Appeal, 27 August 1862, p. 1.
She ceased appearing as a professional entertainer on marriage in 1865 but in the 1870s, under her married name, was one of Oakland’s “most popular choir and concert singers”. Marin County Journal, San Rafael, 25 February 1865, p. 2; Oakland Tribune, 1 December 1885, p. 3.
In September the same year she made her first Broadway theatre performance as “Miss Isabella” in William A. Mestayer’s three-act musical play The Tourists in a Pullman Palace Car at New York’s Fifth Avenue Theatre. The Era, London, 12 September 1880, p. 5. Under contract with the John A. McCaull Comic Opera Company she next appeared on Broadway in the younger Johann Strauss’s operetta The Queen's Lace Handkerchief at the Casino Theatre. This was staged as the Casino’s inaugural presentation in October 1882, and the cast, with Paullin in the role of the King and Lily Post as the Queen, were supported by a chorus of sixty and an orchestra of forty. She toured Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities with this production, returning in late December for its further one hundred and thirty performances at the Casino. With Lillian Russell, Madeleine Lucette Ryley and Digby Bell she appeared in the McCaull production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer at the Casino in 1883.
In 1884 she was seen in the adaptation Fantine at the Boston Museum and toured theatres in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania in the Boston-based “Grand Fairy Musical Ballet Spectacle” Zanita.
Returning to California in 1885, she joined William T. Carleton’s Opera Company and took the title role in Genée’s Nanon in which she gave, said the Daily Alta’s critic, “a delightful performance… her singing having very much improved since we used to hear her in the Emelie Melville troupe and she is more beautiful than ever”. Daily Alta California, 1 November 1885, p. 2. With the same company she played “Yum-Yum” in The Mikado at the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco and afterwards on local tour. Daily Alta California, November 17, 1885, p. 8. On leaving the company she was replaced by Fanny Rice. Daily Alta California, 20 February 1887, p. 8.
In 1889 she starred in Ardriell, a comic opera staged at the Broadway Union Square Theatre. Critic Alan Dale commented that "Miss Paullin can certainly make herself heard, and that is about all that can be favorably said about her performance, which was characterized by an intense lack of refinement, and a pretty well defined mispronunciation of the English language." The correspondent for London’s The Era was less hostile in his review: although dismissing the production as a triviality, he found its principal redeeming feature was that “Miss Paullin sang well in the title role”. The Era, 22 June 1889, p. 16. In 1897 she appeared as “Juliette” in The Geisha at Chicago’s Columbia Theatre.
Paullin tried her hand at adapting a musical comedy from the German in 1888, when she wrote Our Baby's Nurse, which was produced that year in Philadelphia. She was a popular face on cigarette cards in the 1880s. She also lent her image to endorse "Burdock Blood Bitters", a digestive aid, Lion Coffee, skin care products, and Vin Mariani.
In 1883, Louisa was living at 183 Lexington Avenue, New York City, under her married name of Ogilby,Trow’s New York City Directory, Vol. XCVI, for the Year Ending 1 May 1883, The Trow City Directory Company, p. 1250. and in September 1885, described as a widow, she married the theatrical agent Henry B. Warner in Manhattan. She died in New York on 18 April 1910,NYCMA, Manhattan Death Records 1812-1948: Louise Warner, widow, age 65, no occupation, Hotel Albert East 11th Street, 18 April 1910. at which time her wealth was estimated at $250,000.“Ungrateful Daughter Gets Strange Bequest”, Morning Union, Grass Valley & Nevada City, 2 June 1912, p. 7. Her husband, Warner, had died on August 28 in the previous yearNYMCA, Manhattan Death Records 1812-1948: Henry B. Warner, married, age 61, theatrical manager, 26 West 61st Street, 28 August 1909. and, like him, she was cremated at Rosehill, Linden, New Jersey.
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