Sadie Martinot

Sadie Martinot, born Sarah Frances Marie Martinot on December 19, 1861, in New York City, was an American actress and soprano who performed in dramas, musical comedies, and comic operas on stage in the United States and abroad from 1876 until 1908. Her Broadway appearances spanned from 1885 to 1908 and included productions such as Mary and John, The Passport, Toddles, The Marriage Game, and The Mud Turtle, among others. She was a native of Jamaica, New York.

Martinot was the daughter of William Alexander Martinot and Mary Lydia Martinot, née Randall. Her paternal grandfather, John P. Martinot, was a French immigrant who established a wholesale business in imported silk goods, and her father worked in that firm while also serving in the American Civil War and later as a New York City police detective. Her mother was said to descend from the family that once held ownership of Randall's Island in Manhattan. Before entering the theater, Martinot attended local public schools and the Ursuline Convent in New Rochelle, New York. Some accounts identified her under different names and described her as the daughter of an Irish-American single mother, but Martinot herself stated publicly in March 1894 that she was the daughter of Mary and William Alexander Martinot.

Her stage career began in 1876 when she joined Manhattan's Eagle Theatre as a walk-on player earning five dollars a week. Her debut came in late August of that year when an injury to chorus girl Maude Branscombe created an opening for Martinot to perform the role of Cupid in F. C. Burnand's Ixion; or, the Man at the Wheel. The following year she toured with Adah Richmond's company in Chow Chow: or, A Tale of Pekin, earning eighteen dollars a week and performing an imitation of Marie Aimee that included the song Pretty as a Picture. A Christmas 1877 engagement at the Boylston Museum in Boston and a subsequent performance at that city's Americus Club led to an offer from the Boston Museum stock company. In November of the following year she appeared in the original American production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore at the Boston Museum, where she originated the role of Hebe and over subsequent seasons rose to the position of leading soubrette.

Martinot left the Boston Museum after actor-manager Dion Boucicault offered her a significant salary increase to join him in England, a raise the Museum's management had declined to match. She made her London debut on Boxing Day 1880 at the Alhambra Theatre, playing the Spirit of the Bracken in the three-act comic opera Mefistofele II. The following March at the same venue she played Celine in the opéra bouffe Jeanne, Jeannette, et Jeanneton. On October 14, 1882, at the Royal Comedy Theatre in London, she created the role of Katrina in the comic opera Rip Van Winkle, becoming the first performer to play that character in the production.

By 1883 Martinot had returned to New York with Boucicault for the inaugural season of his Star Theatre, formerly Wallack's Theatre. Their first production, Boucicault's Vice Versa, opened on March 26 with Martinot in the role of Mrs. Clingstone Peach. The season continued with her playing Moya in The Shaughraun on April 12, Dora in The Omadhaun on April 19, and Eily O'Connor in The Colleen Bawn that May. In January 1884 she played Portia in the farce Distinguished Gentleman at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and that August she appeared as Florence Nightingale Fletcher in Queena at the Union Square Theatre. In April 1885 she played Sophie in Dakolar at the Lyceum Theatre, and on June 29, 1885, at the Casino Theatre, she became the first performer to sing the role of Nanon Patin in an English-language adaptation of the operetta Nanon.

In December 1885 Martinot traveled to Florence for a theatrical engagement, where she contracted a strain of malaria known as Roman Fever. She was transported by private train to Vienna, where she spent several years recovering and engaging with European art and culture. Upon returning to New York she was set to star in the comic opera Nadjy, but withdrew from the production before its opening following a disagreement with the Casino Theatre stage manager. Her first performance after her return from Europe took place early in 1889 at Amberg's German Theatre, where she played Bettina in Das Maskottchen in German. On September 27, 1890, she played Mrs. Horton in Hamilton Aide's Dr. Bill at the Garden Theatre, and on October 6 of the same year she appeared at the same venue as Lois in Jerome K. Jerome's Sunset. She subsequently starred in a national tour performing the title role in Charles Frederic Nirdlinger's Pompadour and the role of Dora in Victorien Sardou's Diplomacy.

Martinot continued working steadily through the following decade and into the early twentieth century. Her roles during this period included Suzette in The Voyage of Suzette in 1893, Mrs. Darcey in The Passport in 1894, Lady Angela in Patience in 1896, Hattie in A Stranger in New York in 1897, Leonie in The Turtle in 1898, Lady Carnby in The Marriage Game in 1901, Paula in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray in 1903, Mary Erwin in Mary and John in 1905, Mrs. Temple in Mrs. Temple's Telegram in 1906, and Lady Dover in Toddles in 1908.

Martinot married twice. Her first marriage was to Fred Stinson, a theatrical manager who died in 1895, on March 30, 1879, in Boston. Her second marriage was to Louis F. Nethersole, a theatrical manager, producer, and press agent and a brother of actress Olga Nethersole, on May 30, 1901, in Manhattan. Her marriage record to Nethersole lists her name as Sarah F. Stinson. At the time of her death she was believed to be divorced from Nethersole. Reports also circulated that she had married comedian-actor Max Figman, with whom she encountered financial difficulties. Beyond her stage work, Martinot authored magazine articles throughout her career, studied Wagnerian opera, and was an accomplished equestrian.

In her later years Martinot suffered from mental illness. On January 5, 1916, she jumped from a second-story window of an apartment building on Fort Washington Avenue in New York, landing in an adjacent courtyard. She was transported first to Washington Heights Hospital and then transferred to the Psychiatric Ward at Bellevue Hospital. In March 1918 she was committed to the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane and later moved to St. Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, New York. At some point in 1918 she escaped confinement and was found in Washington, D.C., disoriented and unable to recall her name. Martinot died of heart disease on May 7, 1923, while still institutionalized at St. Lawrence Hospital.