Madge Lessing

Madge Lessing, born Margaret O'Donnell in London on 27 November 1873 to Irish parents Catherine (née Buckley) and James Patrick O'Donnell, was a British stage actress and singer whose career spanned Broadway, the West End, and continental Europe from approximately 1890 to 1921. Known as a pantomime principal boy and a postcard beauty of Edwardian musical comedy, she also made several early film appearances in Germany. She died in Bournemouth on 14 August 1966 at the age of 92.

Lessing claimed in interviews that she ran away from home to pursue a stage career, traveling from London to the United States around 1890. She began as a chorus girl at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York, where within three weeks she was promoted to the title role in the burlesque Belle Helene. Engagements with the Solomon Opera Company followed, after which she appeared as Chollie Keal in The Passing Show in 1894. In May 1896 she opened in the musical revue In Gay New York at the Casino Theatre in New York, a production written by C. M. S. McLellan, who would later become her brother-in-law. That same year she took on the principal boy role of Jack Hubbard in Klaw and Erlanger's extravaganza Jack and the Beanstalk, which ran for 64 performances at the Casino Theatre before touring to the Boston Museum and the Lafayette Square Opera House in Washington, D.C. in 1898.

In 1899 Lessing appeared in A Dangerous Maid for 64 performances at the Casino Theatre. At Christmas of that year she played Little Boy Blue in 12 performances of the children's pantomime Little Red Riding Hood in Boston, a production that subsequently moved to the Casino Theatre in New York in early January 1900 with an expanded adult cast and revised material. She then succeeded Mabelle Gilman in the role of Priscilla in the vaudeville production The Rounders at the Columbia Theatre in Boston in 1900, a credit that would later appear among her verified Broadway appearances. That same year she took the title role in a Boston revival of the two-act operetta The Lady Slavey, with music by Gustave Kerker and book by George Dance, and played Anita Tivoli in The Monks of Malabar.

Lessing made her London debut at Christmas 1900, appearing as Princess Beauty in The Sleeping Beauty and the Prince at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, a production that ran for 134 performances. In 1901 she played Dimples in The Whirl of the Town, and in 1902 she appeared as Jill alongside Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell in the pantomime Mother Goose at Drury Lane, as well as taking the role of Violet Gray in the first revival of The Belle of New York at the Adelphi Theatre in London. The following year she played the title role in Em'ly, an adaptation of David Copperfield, also at the Adelphi Theatre. Her Broadway credits during this period include Erminie at the Casino Theatre in New York in 1903 and Wang in 1903 with the DeWolf Hopper Opera Company. In 1904 she appeared in Sergeant Brue at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London and was part of the opening programme at the London Coliseum Theatre of Varieties on 24 December 1904, where she performed several songs including "Goodbye, Little Girl" and "My Irish Molly O." In 1906 she played Elsie in 18 matinee performances of Noah's Ark at the Waldorf Theatre in London.

Lessing's career extended to continental Europe in the years that followed. She appeared in The Prince of Pilsen at the Olympia Theatre in Paris in 1907 and 1908, and performed in Halloh! at the Berlin Metropol in 1909. She was also the dance partner to Will Bishop in the Berlin Metropol revue Chauffeur-ins Metropol in 1912. During her time in Berlin she appeared in several films directed by Max Mack, including The Blue Mouse (1913), in which she played Fritzl Lustig, Where Is Coletti? (1913), in which she played Lolotte, and A World Without Men (1914), in which she played Gusti. She remained at the Metropol for four years until the outbreak of World War I prompted her return to England, where she appeared in the London production of Sleeping Partners and took the leading role in The Girl from Ciro's. Her Broadway credits also include the revue Fads and Fancies.

In 1920 Lessing returned to the United States. In 1921 she appeared once more in Erminie at the Park Theatre in New York, which stands as her last known professional stage performance. Her Broadway career, which had begun in 1894, thus concluded in 1921.

Lessing married George Brinton McLellan (1867–1932), a London-based American theatrical manager and producer and the brother of playwright C. M. S. McLellan. George McLellan had previously been married to musical comedy actress Pauline Hall from 1894 to 1902 and was best known for producing the play Is Zat So? (1925), which ran for 634 performances at the 39th Street Theatre in New York and opened the same year at the Adelphi Theatre in London.