Pauline Hall

Pauline Hall, born Pauline Fredrika Schmidgall on February 26, 1860, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was an American stage actress and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1886 to 1919. She performed in over two dozen Broadway operettas across that period, appearing in productions including Erminie, Robin Hood, The Geisha, The Gypsy Baron, and Apple Blossoms.

Hall left school at fourteen and began working as a dancer in Cincinnati in 1875. She subsequently joined the Alice Oates Opera Company before departing to tour in straight plays alongside Mary Anderson. By 1880 she had entered the orbit of producer Edward E. Rice, who cast her in multiple musical productions, including a revival of Evangeline that year in which she took the trouser role of the hero Gabriel.

Her most significant early achievement came with the title role in the first American production of Erminie, which ran from 1886 to 1888. Hall performed the role approximately 800 times between her Broadway engagement and a national tour, a record-breaking run that established her as a widely recognized name in American light opera. She remained a prominent figure in comic and light opera throughout the country until 1890, after which she led her own touring companies from 1890 to 1896. By 1898 she had entered vaudeville, where she reportedly earned as much as $600 per week.

Later in her career Hall appeared in revivals of Robin Hood and The Geisha in 1912 and 1913, respectively, and took part in Ziegfeld productions. She was married to Edward White from 1881 to 1889, and subsequently to theatrical manager George B. McLellan, brother of playwright C. M. S. McLellan, from 1894 to 1902. She had a daughter by McLellan in 1895.

Hall died of bronchial pneumonia on December 29, 1919, in Yonkers, New York, at the age of 59, while she was appearing in David Belasco's production The Gold Diggers.