Madge Titheradge

Madge Titheradge (2 July 1887 – 14 November 1961) was an Australian-born actress who built her reputation as a leading performer in both the West End and on Broadway. Born in Melbourne to a theatrical English family, she was the daughter of actor George Titheradge and his wife Alma, née Saegert, who performed under the stage name Alma Santon. Her younger brother Dion also pursued careers as an actor and playwright. Titheradge was educated at a private school in Hampstead, and by 1902, shortly after turning fifteen, she had already made her London stage debut at the Garrick Theatre, appearing as the Second Water Baby in Rutland Barrington's adaptation of The Water Babies. Barrington later wrote in his memoirs that she danced with such evident enjoyment of her work that she made a great success of the role.

Over the following years Titheradge performed at a succession of West End venues, including the Haymarket and His Majesty's Theatre, where she appeared as Mimi in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of Trilby. In 1907 she appeared at the Playhouse alongside Cyril Maude in a French farce adapted into English as French as He is Spoke, and the following year performed the same role in French at His Majesty's in the original version, L'Anglais tel qu'on le parle, with Coquelin aîné. In 1908 she joined Lewis Waller's company, through which she took on her first Shakespearian role, playing Princess Katherine in Henry V. That same year she married actor Charles Quartermaine, with whom she appeared on stage in several productions; the couple divorced in 1919.

Titheradge rejoined Waller for subsequent productions in London, New York, and on tour in the United States in 1912 and Australia in 1913, the latter being her only return to the country of her birth. During the Australian tour she appeared in A Marriage of Convenience and in Henry V, a production that also featured her father, George Titheradge. She additionally played Peggy Admaston in Edward Hemmerde and Francis Neilson's A Butterfly on the Wheel during that tour, a credit that also appears among her verified Broadway appearances. In December 1914 she took the title role in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in London, with Hilda Trevelyan as Wendy and a fifteen-year-old Noël Coward as Slightly. She made her screen debut in the 1915 film Brigadier Gerard, again opposite Waller.

Her work at Drury Lane in the years that followed demonstrated a wide range: she played a highly strung heroine of melodrama in the 1916 autumn drama The Best of Luck, served as principal boy in successive pantomimes, and after a period of film work in California returned to Drury Lane in 1920 for the stage version of Robert Hichens's novel The Garden of Allah, opposite Godfrey Tearle. Her roles in the 1920s extended further to include Desdemona to Tearle's Othello at the Court Theatre in 1921, Nora Helmer in Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Playhouse in 1923, and Beatrice opposite Tearle's Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing in 1926. She created two roles in plays written by Coward: Nadya in The Queen Was in the Parlour at St Martin's Theatre in 1926, and Janet Ebony in Home Chat at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1927.

Her Broadway career spanned 1912 to 1928 and included the plays King Henry V, Discovering America, A Butterfly on the Wheel, and The Patriot. The last of these brought her to the Majestic Theatre in January 1928, where she played Anna, Baroness Ostermann in Ashley Dukes's The Patriot. Later that year she married American businessman Edgar Park and temporarily left the stage. When Park lost his fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929, she returned to performing, as recalled by Sir John Gielgud, who greatly admired her work.

After nearly five years away from the stage, Titheradge reappeared at the Haymarket in December 1932 as Clary Frohner in Business with America. In September 1933 she succeeded Fay Compton as Norma Matthews in Proscenium at the Globe, co-starring with Ivor Novello. One of her most celebrated later roles came in October 1934, when she played Julie Cavendish in Theatre Royal by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman at the Lyric Theatre, directed by Coward, alongside Marie Tempest and Laurence Olivier in a parody of the American theatrical Barrymore family. In September 1936, again under Coward's direction, she played the title role in Jacques Deval's comedy Mademoiselle at Wyndham's Theatre, heading a cast that included Isabel Jeans, Greer Garson, and Cecil Parker. Her health declined during that run due to severe arthritis, and after one final role — Edith Venables in A Thing Apart in March 1938 — she retired from the stage. Her husband died that same year. Titheradge lived in retirement until her death on 14 November 1961, at her home in Fetcham, Surrey, at the age of 74.