Marguerite Namara

Marguerite Namara, born Marguerite Evelyn Cecilia Banks on November 19, 1888, in Cleveland, Ohio, was an American lyric soprano whose career encompassed opera, Broadway, film, and concert recitals across several decades. She died on November 5, 1974, in Marbella, Spain, two weeks before what would have been her 86th birthday. Her family background included descent from Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullens on her father's side, and she was a great-grandniece of Union General Nathaniel Prentice Banks, who served as both Governor of Massachusetts and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, Namara attended St. Vincent's School and Girls' Collegiate High School, where she studied piano and voice from an early age. Her mother, who served as one of her early vocal coaches, accompanied her as a teenager to make a recording for Thomas Edison, the two of them performing the Flower Duet from Delibes's opera Lakmé. At eighteen she enrolled at the Milan Conservatory, and a year later, in 1908, she made her operatic debut in the title role of Gounod's Faust at the Teatro Politeamo in Genoa. She took her stage name from her mother's maiden name, McNamara, and was thereafter known professionally as Madame Namara.

Between 1910 and 1926, Namara sang with the Boston Opera Company, the Chicago Opera Company — where she succeeded Mary Garden in Thaïs — the Metropolitan Opera, and the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Her operatic repertoire included lead roles in Cavalleria Rusticana, Manon, Carmen, Il trovatore, Tosca, La traviata, and La bohème. She also appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in London on five occasions between 1921 and 1925, and toured nationally and in Europe with leading orchestras.

Namara's Broadway career spanned 1915 to 1941. Her debut came in 1915 in Alone at Last, a Franz Lehár operetta written expressly for her. She subsequently starred for the Shuberts in revivals of H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado, and her later Broadway credits included the musical Night of Love and The Hot Mikado. Additional theatrical work included supporting roles in Enter Madame, Claudia, and Lo and Behold, performed both on Broadway and on tour.

Her film work began with the 1920 silent picture Stolen Moments, in which she co-starred with Rudolph Valentino; her infant daughter Peggy appeared in the film in a small part. In 1931 she starred in Gipsy Blood, a British film company's production of Carmen — the first musical film version of that opera — opposite British actor Lester Matthews. Exterior scenes were shot in Ronda, Spain, while the music was recorded in London with the London Symphony Orchestra. She later appeared in smaller roles in Thirty-Day Princess (1934), with Cary Grant and Sylvia Sidney, and Peter Ibbetson (1935), with Gary Cooper and Ann Harding.

In the early 1930s, with her singing voice strained from overwork, Namara appeared in the London cast of Ivor Novello's play Party, which opened on May 23, 1932. Following the onset of the Depression she returned to Hollywood and taught voice, with actors Ramón Novarro and Frances Drake among her pupils. During the 1940s and 1950s her voice mellowed to a mezzo-soprano range, and she found modest success on the concert recital circuit, singing occasionally on radio as well. Many of her touring costumes were designed by heiress Natalie Hays Hammond, a friend and patroness. In the early 1960s she and her third husband retired to a ranch house in California's Carmel Valley, where she painted prolifically. She recorded her final album in 1968, the year she turned eighty.

Namara was married three times. Her first marriage, from 1910 to 1916, was to her manager Frederick H. Toye (1887–1930), with whom she had a son, Frederick Namara Toye (1913–2005). Her second marriage, from 1917 to 1926, was to playwright Guy Bolton (1884–1979); their daughter, Marguerite Pamela Bolton (1916–2003), was known as Peggy, a name chosen along with Pamela to honor the child's godfather P. G. Wodehouse, whose first name was Pelham. Her third marriage, from 1937 until her death, was to landscape architect Georg Hoy (1899–1983). She was survived by her two children, two grandchildren — Elizabeth Namara Toye Williams and Frederick D. Toye — and five great-grandchildren.