Kitty Blanchard

Elizabeth "Kitty" Blanchard (c. 1847 – December 14, 1911) was an American stage actress born in Pennsylvania whose Broadway career spanned from 1874 to 1902. She was a prominent figure on the American stage during the 1870s and 1880s and appeared in numerous productions over the course of her career.

Among Blanchard's most notable stage work was her role in The Two Orphans, in which she costarred with Kate Claxton. The production was a popular success. Her Broadway credits also included The Girl with the Green Eyes, The Girl and the Judge, the musical Mam'selle 'Awkins, and The Ghetto, among other productions. In 1894, she was part of the New York cast of Arms and the Man, a George Bernard Shaw play that counted among the earliest American stagings of Shaw's work. In October 1911, she and her husband McKee Rankin came out of retirement to perform together in Peace on Earth.

Blanchard married actor McKee Rankin (1841–1914), and the couple had two daughters, Gladys and Phyllis. Gladys married actor Sidney Drew in the early 1890s, and the pair performed together professionally as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew; they were the parents of S. Rankin Drew. Phyllis became the second wife of actor Harry Davenport, whose sister was the celebrated Victorian-era actress Fanny Davenport. Harry Davenport had a daughter from a prior marriage, Dorothy, who later married actor Wallace Reid. Phyllis had a son out of wedlock, Arthur Rankin, whom Harry adopted upon their marriage. Arthur Rankin Jr., Phyllis's grandson, was the Rankin of Rankin/Bass Productions. Through these marriages, the Blanchard-Rankin family became connected to several prominent theatrical dynasties, including the Barrymores, Drews, and Davenports.

Blanchard died on December 14, 1911, in her bathtub at the Belleclaire Hotel in New York City, where she had been staying under the name Mrs. Oliver Rankin. Newspaper accounts listed her age as 70. She was initially interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn before being moved on June 20, 1913, to the Rankin-Davenport family plot at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, a plot that bears no individual markers.