Cathrine Countiss

Cathrine Countiss, born Birdie Sherman Crooks on 16 July 1873 in Sherman, Texas, was an American actress whose professional career extended from approximately 1901 through 1915. She appeared on Broadway, in traveling stock companies, in vaudeville, and in silent films, performing across the United States and portions of Canada. Her stage name combined an adopted spelling of her first name with the surname of her first husband, William Peter Countiss, whom she married on 7 December 1892 at the Methodist Episcopal South Church in Denison, Texas. Her name was frequently misspelled in contemporary media as Catherine Countiss. She was born to Judge Thomas Jefferson Crooks, a Texas legislator, judge, newspaper publisher, and politician representing the Red River area, and his wife Winnie Jane Edmundson.

Countiss spent her early childhood in Sherman before her family relocated to Denison, Texas, when she was nine years old. Beginning in 1889, she attended the Hagerstown Female Seminary in Maryland, later known as Kee Mar College, for two years. After returning to Denison and marrying William Countiss, she followed him first to St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked as an auditor for the Waters Pierce Oil Company, and later to Omaha, Nebraska. Around 1901, she graduated from a dramatic school in New York, and her stage career began shortly thereafter.

Her earliest professional engagements were with the Murray Hill Stock Company in New York City, where she progressed from small parts to leading roles. In 1903 she completed a 30-week engagement with the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon, a city she would return to repeatedly throughout her career. The following season she toured the Pacific Coast for 40 weeks in the lead role of Glory Quayle in The Christian before joining the Columbia Stock Company, again in Portland.

Between 1906 and 1910, Countiss appeared in four Broadway productions: The Watcher, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Offenders, and Barbara's Millions. Each ran for only a short period. Several of these productions had pre-Broadway engagements in other cities — Mrs. Warren's Profession played the Montauk Theatre in Brooklyn, The Watcher appeared at the Auditorium Theatre in Baltimore, and Barbara's Millions had a run in Chicago.

In May 1907, Countiss participated in the Actors' Fund Fair, a six-day charity bazaar held at the old Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th Street in New York City. The event, which opened on 6 May at the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt from Washington, replicated the streets of Shakespeare's Stratford-on-Avon and raised a total of $63,941.60. Countiss ran a racing wheel booth at the fair. Edward D. Price, who served as Promotion Manager for the event and recruited writers including Mark Twain to publish a daily newspaper covering it, met Countiss there and the two became engaged before the fair concluded. They married on 30 June 1907 at the First Methodist Church in Mt. Vernon, New York. Price subsequently became her theatrical manager.

Under Price's management, the Cathrine Countiss Stock Company opened the Denver summer theatre season beginning the week of 18 May 1908 at the Tabor Grand Opera House with Road to Yesterday. The 13-week engagement comprised 13 different productions starring Countiss in lead roles, beginning at the Tabor before moving to the Broadway Theatre and Garden in July. Productions during the season included Graustark, In the Bishop's Carriage, At Yale, Prince Karl, Mrs. Dane's Defense, Barbara Freitchie, Charley's Aunt, The Three of Us, Strongheart, and others, concluding with Clarice during the week of 10 August. The productions were large in scale, with some featuring actual motor cars driven onstage, a re-enactment of the Yale-Harvard boat race requiring more than 50 cast members, and a production of Barbara Freitchie during the Independence Day weekend that employed over 100 performers.

In subsequent seasons Countiss led stock companies in Denver and Grand Rapids and created the role of Mrs. Howard Jeffries in The Third Degree on tour. In 1911 she toured as Sister Giovanni in The White Sister, and in 1912 she returned to Portland for another summer season at the Heilig Theatre.

Countiss made her formal vaudeville debut on 30 March 1913 at B. F. Keith's Union Square Theatre in New York City, performing in the one-act dramatic playlet The Birthday Present in the role of Gwendolyn. The piece was written specifically for her by Fannie Whitehouse. Following a tryout tour that spring, which included stops in Baltimore and St. Louis, impresario Martin Beck engaged her for a full 40-week tour on the Orpheum circuit. The tour opened at the Brighton Beach Music Hall in August and included Memphis and other cities across the South and Midwest, Canadian stops in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary, Pacific Coast engagements in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and return dates in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Chicago's Palace Theatre. The tour concluded at the newly built Palace Theatre in New York City, where she shared billing with Mademoiselle Dazie in Sir James M. Barrie's Pantaloon, Mae Murray and Clifton Webb, and Harry Fox with Yanci Dolly of the Dolly sisters.

Countiss was married three times, with Price being one of her three husbands. She died on 27 October 1955.