Madge Titheradge (2 July 1887 14 November 1961) was an Australian-born actress who became a leading actress in the West End of London and on Broadway theatre.
She began as a child actress before the First World War, and went on to star in the 1920s and 1930s. Her range was unusually wide, including Shakespeare, pantomime, Henrik Ibsen, farce, drawing-room comedy and romance. Ill health forced her early retirement from the stage in 1938, and she lived in retirement until her death at her home in Surrey, aged 74.
Life and career
Early years, 1887–1907
Titheradge was born in
Melbourne, to a theatrical English family. She was the daughter of the actor George Titheradge and his wife Alma,
née Saegert (Stage name Alma Santon);
[Parker et al, pp. 2373–2374]
her younger brother
Dion Titheradge became an actor and playwright.
["Obituary: Miss Madge Titheradge", The Times, 15 November 1961, p. 17]
She was educated at a private school in
Hampstead,
[ "Titheradge, Madge", Who's Who & Who Was Who, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 7 April 2019 ]
and in 1902, shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she appeared at the
Garrick Theatre, London, as the Second Water Baby in Rutland Barrington's adaptation of
The Water Babies. Barrington recalled in his memoirs "Madge Titheradge was our première danseuse and made a great success with her dance outside the little school-house, or rather cottage; she danced with such evident enjoyment of her work."
[Barrington, Chapter XI]
Over the next three years Titheradge performed at a succession of West End theatres, including the Haymarket and His Majesty's, appearing at the latter as Mimi in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of Trilby.
1908–1928
In 1908 Titheradge joined
Lewis Waller's company, in which she played her first Shakespearian role, Princess Katherine in
Henry V. In 1910 she married the actor Charles Quartermaine, with whom she appeared on stage in several productions. The marriage was happy at first, but the couple grew apart and in 1919 they divorced.
["High Court of Justice", The Times, 18 June 1919, p. 4]
Titheradge rejoined Waller for several later productions in London, New York and on tour in the US (1912) and Australia (1913) – her only return to the country in which she was born.["Christmas at the Theatres", The Times, 21 December 1914, p. 11]
She made her screen debut in the 1915 film Brigadier Gerard starring opposite Waller. Her obituarist in The Times wrote of the next phase of her career:
- Thereafter came a number of variegated parts at Drury Lane, where she showed that she could enact a highly strung heroine of melodrama and the principal boy in pantomime with equal facility. Thus in 1916 she was in the "autumn drama" The Best of Luck; in successive pantomimes she was "principal boy" and after a season of film work in California she returned to Drury Lane in 1920 for what proved to be a spectacular success for the theatre, herself and the leading man, Godfrey Tearle – the stage version of Robert Hichen's novel The Garden of Allah.
Titheradge's roles in the 1920s included Desdemona to Tearle's Othello (Court Theatre, 1921), Nora Helmer in Ibsen's A Doll's House (Playhouse, 1923) and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing with Tearle as Benedick (1926).
Second marriage and later years
In 1928 Titheradge married an American businessman, Edgar Park, and temporarily retired.
John Gielgud, who greatly admired Titheradge, recalled that her husband lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929, leading her to return to the stage.
After nearly five years absence she reappeared in the West End at the Haymarket in December 1932 as Clary Frohner in
Business with America. At the
Gielgud Theatre in September 1933 she succeeded
Fay Compton as Norma Matthews in
Proscenium, co-starring with
Ivor Novello.
One of her most celebrated roles came late in her career, when she played Julie Cavendish in
Theatre Royal by
Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman directed by Coward at the Lyric Theatre in October 1934. She co-starred with
Marie Tempest and the young
Laurence Olivier in a thinly-disguised parody of the American theatrical family the
Barrymore family.
[Chaillet, Ned. "Theatre Royal", The Times, 8 June 1981, p. 11]
At Wyndham's Theatre in, September 1936, again directed by Coward, she played the title role in
Jacques Deval's comedy
Mademoiselle, heading a cast that included
Isabel Jeans,
Greer Garson and
Cecil Parker.
["Theatres", The Times, 26 September 1936, p. 14]
During the run of the play her health began to decline; she suffered from severe
arthritis, and after one more role – Edith Venables in
A Thing Apart, in March 1938 – she retired.
Her husband died in that year.
Titheradge died on 14 November 1961, at the age of 74, at her house in Fetcham, Surrey.["Madge Titheradge", The Guardian, 15 November 1961, p. 7]
Films
-
Brigadier Gerard (1915)
-
A Fair Impostor (1916)
-
The Woman Who Was Nothing (1917)
-
God Bless Our Red, White and Blue (1918)
-
Gamblers All (1919)
-
David and Jonathan (1920)
-
Her Story (1920)
-
The Husband Hunter (1920)
-
Love in the Wilderness (1920)
-
A Temporary Gentleman (1920)
References and sources
Sources
External links
