Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)

Minnie Maddern Fiske, née Marie Augusta Davey, was born into the theater as well as in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was the only child of Thomas Davey, a theatrical manager, and his wife Elizabeth "Lizzie" Maddern, who had grown up performing with her family's concert company. As a child, Minnie toured extensively with her father's troupe, making her New York acting debut at age four. She was educated at various convent schools. By the time she was 13, she was a leading lady, and was being cast in adult roles. In 1882, she married LeGrand White, a young theater musician, but they soon separated, and divorced in 1888. Two years later, she married Harrison Grey Fiske, four years her junior, the wealthy owner of the New York Dramatic Mirror, and retired from the stage. However, by 1893, she was back in the theater, this time as a playwright and director of her own one-act plays: A Light from St. Agnes, The Rose, and The Eyes of the Heart. Now using the name Minnie Maddern Fiske, she also returned to acting and played Nora in a charity production of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House to critical acclaim. She became a champion of Ibsen's work, and the first major performer of a number of his female protagonists. Mrs. Fiske was known for the naturalness and simplicity of her acting, which differed radically from the stage tricks and artificiality still prevalent on the early 20th-century theater. With her husband, she fought the Theatrical Syndicate, which had a virtual monopoly on the professional theatrical circuit in New York and nationwide, to allow theater companies to choose their own plays instead of having them chosen by the Syndicate.