Lillah McCarthy

Lillah McCarthy, born Lila Emma McCarthy on 22 September 1875 in Cheltenham, England, was an English actress and theatrical manager who performed on Broadway in 1915. She died on 15 April 1960 and was later known as Lillah, Lady Keeble OBE. The seventh of eight children to survive infancy born to Jonadab McCarthy and Emma McCarthy, née Price, she grew up at 384 High Street, Cheltenham, a building that served simultaneously as the family home and her father's furniture and antiques retail business. Jonadab McCarthy was also a buyer and seller of property, an amateur astronomer holding the distinction of Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a lover of poetry. A blue plaque on the current property at that address commemorates McCarthy's connection to the site.

After an unhappy experience in formal schooling, McCarthy was educated at home by her father. Her interest in theatre was sparked in 1891 when she witnessed Lillie Langtry perform the title role in Tom Taylor's Lady Clancarty at Cheltenham's New Theatre and Opera House, now known as the Everyman. That same year, at the age of fifteen, she gave a dramatic recital as Lady Macbeth. By 1895, her father had acquired a property in Chepstow Place, Bayswater, which allowed her to pursue further studies in London. She attended Hermann Vezin's School of Acting to study elocution, and her first formal role was Lady Macbeth in an amateur production in May 1895. It was around this time that she adopted the name Lillah.

George Bernard Shaw attended a performance at the Shakespeare Reading Society at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, where McCarthy was directed by theatre manager and Elizabethan specialist William Poel. Shaw observed that her Lady Macbeth showed considerable promise but advised her to spend a decade in the provinces developing her craft. McCarthy followed this counsel, and approximately ten years passed before she sought him out again. In the intervening period she toured with Shakespearian actor and impresario Ben Greet in a range of parts beginning in 1895, and in January 1896 she joined Wilson Barrett's company to play Berenis in the London production of The Sign of the Cross at the Lyric Theatre. In November 1896 she sailed on the Britannic to New York for an overseas tour with Ben Greet's elder brother William, making her first appearance at the Knickerbocker Theatre as Mercia in The Sign of the Cross.

Returning to England in March 1897, McCarthy toured Britain before rejoining Wilson Barrett for a tour to Australia, departing in October 1897 and returning in August 1898. During that tour she appeared in Melbourne as Serena in Claudian, as Auntie Nan in The Manxman, as Gertrude in Hamlet, and as Servia in Virginius, performing alongside her brother Daniel with Barrett in the lead roles. The company then played Sydney for three months, followed by Adelaide, where McCarthy also took on the role of Emilia in Othello, and finally Perth. The tour continued to New Zealand and subsequently to South Africa, arriving in Cape Town in June 1902, shortly after the conclusion of the South African War.

A new phase of McCarthy's career began in 1905 when she wrote to Shaw, who invited her to visit him at Adelphi Terrace. He cast her as Ann Whitefield in Man and Superman at the Court Theatre, Sloane Square, in May 1905, followed by the role of Nora in Shaw's John Bull's Other Island in September of that year. In 1906 she appeared again in Man and Superman opposite Harley Granville Barker, and the two married on 24 April 1906 at the register office on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, honeymooning in Paris, Germany, and the Tyrol.

Between 1907 and 1913 McCarthy appeared in a succession of productions including Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, Alfred Sutro's The Barrier, a revival of Arms and the Man, and Euripides' Bacchae. In 1911 she played the lead role in The Witch, an adaptation by John Masefield of Hans Wiers-Jenssen's Anne Pedersdotter, which opened at the Court Theatre in January of that year and was produced by her husband. McCarthy had been instrumental in persuading Masefield to translate and adapt the work. In 1912 she appeared in Shaw's Fanny's First Play at the Kingsway Theatre, which was by then under her and her husband's management, and in the title role of Gilbert Murray's translation of Iphigenia in Tauris, also at the Kingsway. She also performed before the King and Queen at Downing Street in the third act of John Bull's Other Island and in Barrie's The Twelve Pound Look, after which Prime Minister Asquith's wife Margot wrote to McCarthy to convey the royal couple's enjoyment of her performance. McCarthy had also carried banners in support of Mrs. Pankhurst and the suffragette cause during this period.

McCarthy and her husband sailed to the United States in December 1914. Among their American productions, McCarthy performed in The Doctor's Dilemma at Wallack's Theatre in New York, and in Iphigenia in Tauris at the College of the City of New York as well as at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and other institutions, frequently in stadia. They also produced Trojan Women at the same universities. Her Broadway credits from 1915 include The Doctor's Dilemma, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, and Androcles and the Lion. The American period proved damaging to her marriage, as Granville Barker met and fell in love with a wealthy married American woman, leading to a divorce in 1917 to 1918. Granville-Barker subsequently married Helen Gates, formerly Huntington, on 31 July 1918 at the King's Weigh House Chapel in London, and he prohibited any mention of himself or their marriage in McCarthy's memoir.

Following the divorce, McCarthy continued performing. She played the lead in Shaw's Annajanska, the Wild Grand Duchess, appearing at one point in the uniform of the 1st Panjandrum Hussars and carrying a revolver. She then appeared in Glasgow in Israel Zangwill's farce Too Much Money at the Theatre Royal, which transferred to the Ambassadors in London in April 1918. This was followed by her appearance in The Dumb Wife, an adaptation by Anatole France of a play by Rabelais.