Margaret Illington

Margaret Illington, born Maude Light on July 23, 1879, in Bloomington, Illinois, was an American stage actress whose career on Broadway spanned from 1902 to 1919. The daughter of I.H. Light and his wife Mary Ellen, she pursued formal training at Illinois Wesleyan University before spending two years as a student at Conway's Dramatic School in Chicago.

Illington made her Broadway debut in 1900 and built a substantial stage career over the following two decades. Her 1903 marriage to Broadway impresario Daniel Frohman, which made her a sister-in-law of theater owner Charles Frohman, coincided with a significant period of professional growth. Among her notable early credits was The Two Orphans in 1904, in which she appeared alongside Grace George; the two played the sister roles that Lillian and Dorothy Gish would later portray in D.W. Griffith's 1921 film Orphans of the Storm. Her marriage to Frohman ended in 1909, and the following year she married Edward Bowes. Her Broadway credits included starring roles in A Japanese Nightingale and Kindling, as well as appearances in A Maker of Men, In the Eyes of the World, and Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots, among other productions.

In 1906, Swiss-born American society painter Adolfo Müller-Ury completed a three-quarter seated portrait of Illington depicting her in a gown from Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots. The work was exhibited that December at the gallery of M. Knoedler and Co. on Fifth Avenue, submitted to the Paris Salon in 1907 as entry number 1191, and shown three additional times in 1908 in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia. It was also reproduced in The Metropolitan Magazine, Volume XXV, Number 1, dated October 5, 1906.

Although primarily a stage actress, Illington had some earlier film experience, appearing uncredited as the female lead in Edwin Porter's 1905 production The Train Wreckers. In 1917 she signed with Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky's Famous Players–Lasky franchise to pursue feature filmmaking. She starred in two films, The Inner Shrine and Sacrifice, both directed by stage actor Frank Reicher. Adolph Zukor visited her on set during the production of The Inner Shrine. Kindling, one of her best-known stage productions, was adapted as a silent film by Cecil B. DeMille in 1916, though Illington did not appear in that version. After completing her two films, she returned to the stage for approximately two years before retiring in 1919.

Margaret Illington died on March 11, 1934, at St. Francis Hospital in Miami, Florida.