Selena Fetter Royle

Selena Gray Fetter Royle (April 12, 1860 – May 10, 1955) was an American stage actress born in Louisville, Kentucky, to George Griffith Fetter and Catherine Ann Mercer Gray Fetter. Her sister Virginia Fetter married Civil War general Amos George Stickney. Royle was active on the stage from the 1880s through the early 1900s, and her husband and both daughters also pursued careers in the theater.

Royle made her professional acting debut in Louisville in 1881, appearing in The Wife by James Sheridan Knowles. Her early career included starring in The Tigress in 1888, performing in Love's Sacrifice in Chicago in 1893, and acting alongside Alexander Salvini in 1892. She was also associated with Stuart Robson and William H. Crane on the vaudeville stage.

Her Broadway career spanned from 1892 to 1903 and included several productions connected to her husband, actor and playwright Edwin Milton Royle, whom she married in 1892. Her Broadway credits comprised Friends (1892), Captain Impudence (1897), My Wife's Husbands (1903), and The Other Girl (1903–1904). She additionally toured the United States in productions of Friends and Captain Impudence.

Royle became particularly noted for her physical stage work, specifically her ability to fall convincingly while wearing a gown. In an 1895 interview, she described how audience members would scream at the sound of her falls and send inquiries to her dressing room about her condition. During an engagement in San Francisco, her stage falls inspired a fad among young women who attempted to imitate the technique.

Royle and her husband had two daughters, Josephine and Selena, both of whom became actresses. After 1910, the family resided in Darien, Connecticut. Edwin Milton Royle died in 1942, and Selena Fetter Royle died in 1955 in Van Nuys, California, at the age of 95. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a tobacco card depicting her as a young actress.