Phyllis Rankin

Phyllis McKee Rankin, born August 31, 1874, was a Broadway actress and singer whose stage career extended from the 1880s through the 1920s. She appeared on Broadway from 1897 to 1918 in productions including Three Wise Fools, Lightnin', The Reckoning, the musical Glittering Gloria, and Glad of It. She died on November 17, 1934, in Canton, Pennsylvania, at the age of 60.

Rankin came from a theatrical family. Her parents were stage actors Elizabeth "Kitty" Blanchard and Arthur McKee Rankin, known professionally as McKee Rankin. Her older sister, Gladys Rankin, performed alongside her husband Sidney Drew in an act billed as Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew. Her younger half-sister, Doris Rankin, worked as both a stage and screen actress and was at one time married to actor Lionel Barrymore. Rankin received her early dramatic training from her father, who tutored her in what was described as "old school drama." She made her first stage appearance at the age of 10, performing with her parents in Stormbeaten. She later departed from her father's companies and came under the management of Charles Frohman.

In the summer of 1890, Rankin appeared in a supporting role in Sara, performed at the Palmer Theatre. Two years later, Rose Coghlan brought her in to replace Jennie Yeamans in an 1892 production of The Check Book. In April 1893, she appeared in Arabian Nights on a variety bill at the Standard Theatre on 6th Avenue. By February 1897, she was performing at the Olympia Music Hall on Broadway alongside Auguste van Biene, and that same month she appeared at Proctor's Twenty-Third Street Theatre. She also performed at the St. Nicholas Music Hall in May of that year and sang at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in June. In July, she performed with Lizzie Evans and George Thatcher at Keith's New Union Square Theatre, where her engagement included impersonations of Anna Held.

In December 1897, Rankin played the role of Fifi Fricot in The Belle of New York at the Casino Theatre, a production that had a one-week booking. The show was subsequently staged at the Shaftesbury Theatre in England, where Rankin and actor Harry Davenport performed a duet titled When We Are Married. The two met during that original production and later married. By August 1898, Rankin was receiving offers from English managers of comic opera. Additional productions in which she performed included The Rounders, It Happened in Nordland, and Fascinating Flora.

Following her marriage to Davenport, Rankin left the stage for eleven years. She returned in August 1918 in a small role in Lightnin'. She and Davenport subsequently appeared together at the Criterion Theatre in a production of Three Wise Fools, in which Davenport portrayed a doctor and Rankin a housekeeper. The couple were the parents of Arthur Rankin, a writer and actor in motion pictures, who died from a cerebral hemorrhage following an extended illness in 1947. Rankin was also the mother of three other children, two of whom acted on stage. Their grandson was producer and director Arthur Rankin Jr. After Rankin's death, Harry Davenport continued in motion pictures and became known for his supporting role as Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind.