Corona Riccardo

Corona Riccardo (c. 1878 – October 15, 1917) was an Italian-born American actress who built a stage career in the United States before retiring from performing to marry and raise a family. She was born in Naples and began acting in 1894, taking on the role of a Mexican girl in a production at the Empire Theatre.

Her early career brought her into contact with several prominent theatrical figures of the era. Wilson Barrett cast her in his play The Sign of the Cross, which he toured across the United States, and Riccardo performed two roles in that production — first Ancaria, and later Berenice. Robert B. Mantell, struck by her appearance, engaged her in 1898 for parts in two Shakespeare productions, Romeo and Juliet and Othello. Later that same year, Mantell cast her as Ophelia in Hamlet. In 1899, author Lewis Strang identified Riccardo as the most promising actress in America at the time. She had also been expected to join Augustin Daly's Theatre Company, but Daly's death in 1899 ended that prospect.

Riccardo's Broadway career spanned 1899 to 1903. Her most prominent stage credit came in 1899 when she played Iras in the first stage production of Ben-Hur. She also starred in Marta of the Lowlands during this period.

Around 1905, Riccardo left the stage following a stint in vaudeville in a production centered on Native American themes. During that engagement she met a man known as Chief Silver Tongue, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, also known as the Winnebagos. The two married and settled in Kansas City, Missouri. Riccardo died on October 15, 1917, while hospitalized, survived by her husband and a young son.