Mary Mannering

Mary Mannering, born Florence Friend on April 29, 1876, was an English actress who became one of the notable Broadway performers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She was born Clara Friend, the daughter of Richard Friend and Eliza Whiting, and adopted the name Florence during her teenage years when she began performing on stage. Her family relocated periodically to follow her father's work in the building trade. Before establishing herself as an actress, she worked as a dressmaker through at least 1891. She prepared for a professional stage career under the instruction of Hermann Vezin, and made her theatrical debut in Manchester in 1892 under the name Florence Friend.

Producer Daniel Frohman brought Mannering to New York in 1896, where she adopted the stage name Mary Mannering, taken from the maiden name of her paternal grandmother. Her American debut came on December 1, 1896, when she appeared in the title role of Henry V. Esmond's The Courtship of Leonie at Daniel Frohman's original Lyceum Theatre. She remained with the Lyceum company for several years, appearing in a succession of productions that included Sydney Grundy's The Late Mr. Castello, which opened December 14, 1896, and Frances Hodgson Burnett and George Fleming's The First Gentleman of Europe, Louis N. Parker's The Mayflower, and Arthur Wing Pinero's The Princess and the Butterfly, all in 1897. In 1898 she appeared in R.C. Carton's The Tree of Knowledge and Pinero's Trelawny of the 'Wells', followed by Grace Livingstone Furniss's Americans at Home in 1899 and Jerome K. Jerome's John Ingerfield in 1900.

In 1900, Mannering starred in the Broadway debut of Janice Meredith, playing the title role opposite Robert Drouet as Colonel Jack Brereton. The four-act play was based on the novel of the same name by Paul Leicester Ford. She subsequently appeared in White Roses in New York in 1901, and went on to star in The Walls of Jericho and The Manoeuvres of Jane. Her Broadway career, which spanned from 1896 to 1911, also included productions of The Garden of Allah, A Man's World, and Glorious Betsy. Regional appearances during this period included The Truants in Washington and The Independent Miss Gower in Chicago, both in 1909.

On May 2, 1897, Mannering married James K. Hackett, the leading actor of the Lyceum company, though the marriage was not publicly announced until January 1898. The couple had a daughter, Elise, born in 1904. Mary Mannering died on January 21, 1953.