Grace Filkins

Grace Filkins (June 3, 1865 – September 16, 1962) was an American stage actress born Grace Sweetman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a rabbi. She was married twice and widowed twice, and had one daughter. Her first husband, Robert J. Filkins, was a theatrical manager who died in 1886. In 1896 she married her second husband, Adolph Marix, a naval officer, who died in 1919. Filkins died in New York City in 1962 at the age of 97 and is buried alongside Marix at Arlington National Cemetery. Her daughter, Lydia Filkins, married conductor Nikolai Sokoloff in 1911; the couple divorced in 1936.

Filkins began her performing career in variety shows and worked with the companies of Augustin Daly and Helena Modjeska. She departed the Rosina Vokes Company in 1892 and subsequently sued the organization for lost salary, alleging mistreatment by fellow actor Felix Morris. Her Broadway career spanned nearly four decades, from 1894 to 1931, and encompassed a wide range of productions. Early credits included The Passing Show of 1894, The Royal Box during the 1897–1898 season, The Brixton Burglary in 1901, and both The Lady Across the Hall and The School for Husbands in 1905. She continued with The Daughters of Men from 1906 to 1907, The Third Degree in 1909, and Drifting in 1910. Later Broadway appearances included the musical The Passing Show of 1912, the play Rita Coventry in 1923, Head or Tail in 1926, The Last Chapter, and In the Best of Families in 1931.

Beyond her stage work, Filkins was active as a military wife throughout her marriage to Marix. She spoke publicly about her desire to serve as a Red Cross nurse in 1898, and in 1909 was appointed to lead a women's committee working to raise the USS Maine. She also traveled to the Philippines while her husband was stationed there, taking a period of leave from the stage during that time. Filkins also pursued legal action on separate occasions against actress Marie Dressler and her husband, as well as against playwright Preston Gibson.