Grace Henderson

Grace C. F. Roth Henderson, born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in January 1860, was an American stage actress and prolific performer in silent motion pictures whose career spanned from the 1870s through the early sound era. Her father, Wilhelm F. Roth, a Stuttgart-born justice of the peace, died in Ann Arbor on April 19, 1871. Henderson died on October 30, 1944, at Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx, New York, at the age of 84.

Henderson launched her professional career at McKiver's Theatre in Chicago in 1877. A decade later she established herself at the Lyceum Theatre in New York City, where she originated the role of Lucille Ferrand in The Wife. Her Broadway activity continued from 1887 through 1923 and encompassed a wide range of productions. Among her credited stage appearances were A Lesson in Love, Alias Jimmy Valentine, The Last Straw, The Rise of Silas Lapham, and Shakuntala. She also appeared in The Marquis and earned recognition for her portrayal of Phyllis Lee in The Charity Ball. In 1896 she starred in Under the Polar Star, a production notable for its large replica sailing ship and live sled dogs on stage. Under Southern Skies followed in 1901. Henderson later supported Nance O'Neill in a production of Peter Pan staged at the Empire Theatre with Maude Adams' company. She toured in Lightnin, and her final stage appearance came in the Theatre Guild production of Green Grow the Lilacs.

In 1903, during rehearsals for the Broadway production of My Wife's Husband, Henderson refused to perform alongside Black actor Moses Fairfax, who held a significant role in the production. When interviewed, she attributed her refusal to having been raised in the South, where, she stated, social conventions did not permit a Black man to address a white woman by her first name.

Alongside her stage work, Henderson built a substantial career in silent film, appearing in more than 120 productions beginning in 1909 with Lucky Jim. In 1911 she appeared in His Trust, directed by D. W. Griffith, and in 1912 she was featured in Trying to Fool Uncle, a Mack Sennett production. Her final film was Day Dreams, directed by Clarence G. Badger, in which she played the role of Grandmother Burn.

On December 20, 1881, Henderson married David Henderson, a Chicago newspaperman and theatre manager who oversaw the Chicago Opera House. In November 1896, David Henderson was granted a divorce decree, citing infidelity and naming George Alexander Ballantine of New York as a co-respondent; the divorce was finalized the same month David Henderson married his third wife, Frankie Raymond. During this period Grace was performing in New York in Under the Polar Star. Ballantine subsequently married Minnie Howe Parry on August 28, 1896, at the Waldorf, and the announcement of that engagement reportedly precipitated a confrontation between him and Grace in which a revolver was involved. Henderson did not seek custody of her son from the marriage.

Henderson was survived by her son Edwin L. Henderson of Schenectady, New York.