Adrienne Augarde

Adrienne Adele Augarde (12 May 1882 – 17 March 1913) was an English actress and singer born in Westminster, London, who performed on both sides of the Atlantic for nearly a decade, primarily in Edwardian musical comedy. She was the first child and only daughter of Frank Wells Augarde, a violinist, and his wife Henrietta Catherine, née Van Achter, a Belgian singer. Her younger brother was named Augustus. The Augarde family had deep roots in theatrical and musical life, counting among its members John Vernham, an organist at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge; Augustus Wells Augarde, a clarinettist in the London Symphony Orchestra; Louise Adele Augarde, a contralto in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus; and Amy Augarde, a musical comedy actress, the last two being Adrienne's aunts.

Augarde began her professional career in November 1898 when the impresario J. Pitt Hardacre cast her as Miss Muffet, the principal girl in the pantomime Red Riding Hood, which starred George Robey. The following year she appeared in the musical comedy Little Miss Nobody, by Harry Graham and Arthur E. Godfrey, playing the role of Maggie in London and on tour. In 1900 she took the role of Angela Gilfain in the first touring production of the hit musical comedy Florodora, with her aunt Amy Augarde appearing in the same production as Dolores. She subsequently joined the chorus of the J. W. Turner Opera Company, where her father served as leader of the orchestra, and rose from the chorus to principal parts.

Her West End career advanced significantly in 1903 when she appeared at the Gaiety Theatre as a replacement player in the role of Dora in The Toreador, a musical comedy produced by George Edwardes. Shortly afterward she played Renée, an ingenue role, in another Edwardes production, The Duchess of Dantzic, at the Lyric Theatre, which ran for 236 performances. In 1904 she created the title role in Lady Madcap at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London, a production with a book by Nathaniel Newnham-Davis, music by Paul Rubens, and lyrics by Percy Greenbank and Rubens. She then traveled to America, making her Broadway debut on 16 January 1905 at Daly's Theatre with the original London cast of The Duchess of Dantzic. Following a four-month run in New York, she returned to London to play Blanche-Marie in an English adaptation of the André Messager operetta Les p'tites Michu, known as The Little Michus, which ran for 401 performances in 1905–06, with her aunt Amy in the cast as Blanche-Marie's mother.

In mid-1906 Augarde appeared at the Prince of Wales Theatre in See-See, an Edwardes musical set in China with music by Sidney Jones, lyrics by Adrian Ross, and a book by Charles Brookfield. During that run, she and her aunt Amy performed in a charity matinée of Trial by Jury at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, alongside Rutland Barrington, Henry Lytton, Courtice Pounds, and Gertie Millar, with W. S. Gilbert serving as Associate. Later in 1906 she created the role of the Princess in The New Aladdin, another Edwardes production at the Gaiety Theatre. In 1907 she appeared at the Lyric Theatre as Lady Betty Noel in Tom Taylor's historical drama Clancarty, and later that year played Gwendolyn Ashley in The Sins of Society by Cecil Raleigh and Henry Hamilton at Drury Lane. In 1908, at His Majesty's Theatre, she took the role of Rosa Budd in a stage adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Augarde made several subsequent visits to America for Broadway engagements. During the Christmas season of 1908–09 she starred in the title role of Peggy Machree, a light opera with a romantic Irish theme, at the Broadway Theatre on 41st Street. The London Evening News reported during this period that she had become engaged to A. W. Dingwall, the manager of that theatre. Her most successful American run came with The Dollar Princess, in which she played Daisy at the Knickerbocker Theatre in 1909–10. The musical, with music by Leo Fall and Jerome Kern and a libretto by George Grossmith, Jr., ran for 250 performances. In 1912 she appeared as Daphne in The Rose Maid, a light opera by Harry B. Smith and Raymond Peck, which ran for 181 performances at New York's Globe Theatre.

In the autumn of 1912 Augarde began an American vaudeville tour, opening in California and traveling east. She was featured in a one-act playlet called A Matter of Duty, written by Agnes Burton. While the tour was playing at the Majestic Theater in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1913, she suffered an attack of appendicitis and died following a failed appendectomy on 17 March 1913, at the age of 30. Her funeral was held in Chicago on 21 March 1913, and her ashes were subsequently sent to her mother in an urn designed to resemble a make-up box.