Madge Carr Cook

Madge Carr Cook (1856–1933) was an English-born American stage actress whose Broadway career spanned the first decade of the twentieth century. Born Madge Carr on June 28, 1856, in Yorkshire, England, she made her stage debut at the age of three, playing Fleance in a production of Macbeth in Sunderland, England.

Cook appeared on Broadway between 1901 and 1906, taking on roles in several notable productions. In 1901 she portrayed Mrs. Hunter in the premiere of Clyde Fitch's The Climbers at the Bijou Theatre. She went on to appear in The Frisky Mrs. Johnson, A Modern Magdalen, and Lady Margaret. Her most celebrated Broadway achievement came in 1904, when she originated the title role in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, a performance for which she became particularly well known.

Beyond her own stage work, Cook was recognized as the mother of actress Eleanor Robson Belmont, a leading Broadway star who later retired from the stage following her marriage into the Belmont family. Eleanor Robson Belmont lived to the age of one hundred.

Cook was married twice. Her first marriage was to Charles Robson, who disappeared or deserted her in 1880. In 1891 she married Augustus Cook, who subsequently sought an annulment of their marriage. Cook died on September 20, 1933, at the age of seventy-seven, at her daughter's home in Syosset, Long Island, New York.