Rose Melville

Rose Melville, born Rosa Smock on January 30, 1867, in Terre Haute, Indiana, was an American stage actress who built her career almost entirely around a single character, Sis Hopkins. She was the youngest of four daughters born to Rev. Jacob Smock, a Baptist pastor, and Caroline (Puett) Smock. All three of her elder sisters were also performers, touring together as the Melville Sisters during the 1880s. Melville received her education at St. Mary-of-the-Woods and Franklin College before entering the profession herself.

Her stage debut came in 1889 in Zanesville, Ohio, where she took on a male role in a production called Queen's Evidence. Early in her career she also appeared in Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Two Orphans, and Fanchon the Cricket. Together with her sister Ida, she formed a traveling stock company. It was through this work that the Sis Hopkins character first took shape, introduced in an 1894 production called Zeb. The play proved successful enough to transfer to New York that same year. Melville subsequently performed the character in three additional productions: Little Christopher, The Prodigal Father during the 1896–97 season, and By the Sad Sea Waves during the 1898–99 season, the last of which brought her to Broadway. She later brought Sis Hopkins to vaudeville in a sketch titled Sis Hopkins' Visit, which she eventually expanded into a full-length play called Sis Hopkins. That play became the defining work of her career, and she performed it more than 5,000 times.

Melville's fame extended into film. In 1916 the Kalem Company contracted with her to produce twenty-one short films, all featuring her in the Sis Hopkins role. In 1918 Goldwyn Pictures released a feature-length adaptation of the Sis Hopkins play starring Mabel Normand, though that film is now lost. Melville herself appeared in two feature films in 1922 and 1923, stepping away from the Sis Hopkins character for those productions.

She was married twice: first to theatrical manager Harry Hardy, from 1889 to 1902, and later to actor Frank Minzey, whom she married in 1910. Melville died on October 8, 1946, at her home in Lake George, New York.