Christie MacDonald

Christie MacDonald (February 28, 1875 – July 25, 1962) was a Canadian-born American actress and opera singer who performed in musical comedy and operetta on Broadway from 1899 to 1920. Born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, she was the daughter of John MacClean MacDonald, a shipbuilder, mariner, and innkeeper, and Jessie MacDonald, née MacKenzie. Around the age of nine, her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where she attended Bowdoin and later Boston High School.

MacDonald launched her performing career in small roles in Boston before joining Pauline Hall's theatre troupe in 1892. The following year she traveled to New York, where she was cast in a minor part in The Lion Tamer, a production mounted by Francis Wilson and his company. During the subsequent season with Wilson's troupe, she was assigned the small role of Marie in the comic opera Erminie, eventually stepping into the more substantial role of Javotte when Lulu Glaser left the production due to illness. In the 1894–1895 season, still with Wilson's company, MacDonald appeared in the secondary role of Mrs. Griggs, also known as Dolly, in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Chieftain. That same season she portrayed the valet Bob in the premiere of the operetta The Devil's Deputy, a work originally intended to feature a score by John Philip Sousa, an arrangement that fell through after Wilson declined to meet Sousa's fee.

Her first starring role came in 1900, when she took the title part in the Kirke La Shelle and Julian Edwards comic opera The Princess Chic, which also featured Melville Collins as Louis XI. MacDonald went on to star or co-star in a succession of notable productions, including The Belle of Mayfair in 1906 alongside Valeska Suratt, Miss Hook of Holland in 1908 with Bertram Wallis, and a 1910 revival of The Mikado opposite Fritzi Scheff. That same year she appeared in one of her most recognized roles, portraying the Princess of Bozena in The Spring Maid, Heinrich Reinhardt's operetta. The 1913 musical Sweethearts, composed by Victor Herbert, was written specifically for MacDonald. She concluded her stage career with a 1920 revival of the musical comedy Florodora. Her Broadway credits also included The Man in the Moon, The Toreador, The Bride Elect, and The Sho-Gun, among other productions. In addition to her stage work, MacDonald made several gramophone recordings.

In 1901 MacDonald married William W. Jefferson, a son of the celebrated actor Joseph Jefferson; the marriage ended in divorce some years later. In 1903 she gave birth to a child fathered by theatrical promoter and New York State Senator Timothy Sullivan; the child was placed in the New York Foundling Hospital, and MacDonald did not return to the stage until 1904. She married Henry L. Gillespie, heir to a prominent Pittsburgh contracting family, in 1911, and the couple had one daughter, also named Christie. By 1950 MacDonald was residing with her daughter and grandchildren in Westport, Connecticut. She died on July 25, 1962, in Fairfield, Connecticut.