Laura Keene

Laura Keene, born Mary Frances Moss on 20 July 1826 in Winchester, England, was a British stage actress and theatre manager whose Broadway career spanned from 1853 to 1871. The fourth child of Thomas and Jane Moss, she counted British actress Elizabeth Yates among her close relatives, as Yates was her aunt. At eighteen, Keene married British Army officer Henry Wellington Taylor, reportedly a nephew and godson of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. The marriage produced two daughters, Emma, born in 1846, and Clara Marie Stella, born in 1849. Taylor's subsequent arrest, conviction, and transportation to Australia on a prison ship left Keene alone with her children and without financial support. Acting on her aunt's advice, she pursued a stage career, adopting the name Laura Keene because social convention at the time made it unacceptable for a woman in her circumstances to perform under her own name. Her mother Jane, by then widowed, assumed responsibility for raising the two daughters. Keene and Taylor remained legally married until his death in 1860, despite her attempts to locate him in Australia to obtain a divorce.

Keene made her professional debut in October 1851, playing Pauline in The Lady of Lyons in London. She subsequently performed at the Royal Olympic Theatre and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, spending several months working under Madame Vestris. In 1852, less than a year into her British career, she accepted an offer from James William Wallack to join his New York stock company as leading lady. Her debut at Wallack's Theatre came in The Will, in the role of Albino Mandeville, and she remained with the company from 20 September 1852 through 22 November 1853, earning considerable popularity during that period.

Seeking greater control over her professional life, Keene moved into theatre management with the assistance of John Lutz, whom she would marry in 1860 and who remained her partner for the rest of her career. She departed Wallack's company abruptly and relocated to Baltimore, where she leased the Charles Street Theater from 24 December 1853 to 2 March 1854, serving simultaneously as manager, director, and performer. This was followed by touring engagements in California from 6 April through 29 July 1854, during which Catherine Norton Sinclair hired her to perform opposite Edwin Booth. Keene then spent a month as manager and lessee of the Union Theatre in San Francisco before traveling with Booth to Australia from 23 October 1854 through January 1855. Booth's behavior during the Australian tour ended both their professional relationship and the engagement. Returning to California, Keene managed the American Theatre from 9 April through 4 October 1855, until newly enacted laws prohibiting Sunday entertainment reduced attendance sufficiently to prompt her departure.

Back in New York, Keene leased the Metropolitan Theatre, renovated it, and reopened it as Laura Keene's Varieties, where she served as manager, director, and star performer until William Burton purchased the building on 23 December and relocated his own operation there. Keene then secured investors and commissioned an architect who specialized in theatre construction to build a new venue to her specifications. Laura Keene's Theatre opened on 18 November 1856. In November 1857 she staged The Sea of Ice to financial success. That same year, a production of The Elves ran for a record 50 performances, a remarkable achievement in an era when few productions exceeded a dozen. On 29 March 1860, Keene premiered Dion Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn, which ran for six weeks through 12 May; the production was notable for staging an ocean island scene in which the hero dives into the water to rescue the character Eily O'Connor. In November 1860, Keene premiered the musical The Seven Sisters, which featured elaborate sets and ran for 253 performances. Our American Cousin had debuted at Laura Keene's Theatre on 25 August 1858, and both The Seven Sisters and The Elves are among the Broadway credits associated with her career, alongside productions including Nobody's Child, Tib, and Young Baccus.

On the evening of 14 April 1865, Keene's company, which included performers John Dyott and Harry Hawk, was presenting Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln were in attendance. During the performance, actor John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Lincoln in the presidential box and fled the theatre. In the ensuing chaos, Keene made her way to the presidential box and cradled the mortally wounded Lincoln's head in her lap. Lincoln's wound bled onto her dress, staining her cuff, which was later donated to the National Museum of American History.

By 1863, deteriorating health had forced Keene to relinquish management of her own theatre. She continued as manager and star of a touring company that traveled throughout the United States for much of the following decade. She also served as manager of the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia from 20 September 1869 through 25 March 1870. Her second husband, John Lutz, died on 18 April 1869. Keene gave her final performance on 4 July 1873 while on tour in northern Pennsylvania. She died of tuberculosis on 4 November 1873 in Montclair, New Jersey, at the age of 47, and is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.