Ida Conquest

Ida Conquest (February 26, 1876 – July 12, 1937) was an American stage actress who built her career as a leading lady on Broadway and in London during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of John Alfred Stokes Conquest and Elizabeth Harriet Mortimer, who had lived on Centre Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her father was a partner in a fish wholesale business. Conquest's interest in theater began in childhood, when she participated in a production of Pinafore at the Boston Museum.

Her professional stage career began in New York in January 1893. She made an early appearance at Miner's Theater on Fifth Avenue on January 25, 1893, and subsequently appeared at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on January 28, 1893, playing the First Girl Friend in The Harvest. In 1894 she worked alongside Olga Nethersole at Palmer's Theater, 485 Broadway, in The Transgressor, and also appeared with Nethersole in Camille in the role of Nanine. By 1895 she had joined the Empire Theatre Company under producer Charles Frohman, where she took on numerous parts including roles in Under the Red Robe, Bohemia, A Man and His Wife, and The Conquerors. She eventually succeeded Isabel Irving as leading lady of the John Drew Company.

Conquest worked with three of the most prominent actors of her era: John Drew, Richard Mansfield, and William Gillette. With Gillette she traveled to London's Garrick Theatre in 1898 to appear in Too Much Johnson. Her association with Drew produced several notable productions at the Empire Theatre in New York, including The Second in Command in 1901, Richard Carvel, which was based on a novel by Winston Churchill, and The Tyranny of Tears. Beginning in 1904, Conquest worked with Mansfield at the New Amsterdam Theatre, portraying the Empress in Ivan the Terrible. She and Mansfield also appeared together in Old Heidelberg, Beau Brummel, A Parisian Romance, and Beaucaire.

Her Broadway credits across her career, which spanned 1899 to 1910, included The Narrow Path, Because She Loved Him So, Little Eyolf, and The Revellers, among other productions. Additional theatrical work included The Girl with the Green Eyes by Clyde Fitch, The Money Makers, Man and Superman, Little Brother of the Rich, Wolf, and The Talker. In the role of Sylvia in Little Brother of the Rich, she wore a coronet she had crafted herself, modeled after a spray of mistletoe. In 1907 she appeared at Denver's Elitch Theatre in productions including Leah Kleschna and The Second in Command. Her final New York appearance came in 1910, when she appeared alongside Alla Nazimova in Henrik Ibsen's Little Eyolf, staged at the Nazimova 39th Street Theatre.

Outside of performing, Conquest developed a serious hobby in jewelry making. To gain technical skill, she spent several weeks working at the Roman Bronze Works factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She became proficient in setting stones, working with rings, cameos, and lapis lazuli, and used California abalone shells to construct headpieces. She also designed jewelry while traveling, sketching ideas as inspiration arose. The head of Roman Bronze Works, Riccardo Bertelli, a graduate of the University of Turin and the oldest son of Admiral Luigi Bertelli of Genoa, became her husband. The two married at Trinity Church in Boston in October 1911, after which Conquest retired from the stage.

Conquest died on July 12, 1937, at her home at 320 East 72nd Street in Manhattan at the age of 61. Her funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue and 71st Street. Her husband was in Europe at the time and did not attend. Her daughter, Gigiotta Bertelli, who later married Ugo D'Annunzio, son of Gabriele D'Annunzio, was the only immediate family member present. Conquest was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.