WEBVTT - Mrs. Patrick Campbell 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.000 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.079 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So today we are 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.880 going to talk about an actress actor, although she would 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.960 have called herself an actress because that sort of more 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.840 standardized form of using a non gendered noun for it 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.040 would not have existed then. She was hugely famous in 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.959 the early twentieth century, although she has not really retained 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.960 her iconic status the way some other actors have. She 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.159 kind of got into acting in a surprising, sort of 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.879 sideways way, but she quickly had a reputation as a 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.200 stage diva with a sharp tongue, and she also originated 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.080 one of the most beloved characters of the stage and screen. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.640 We are talking about missus Patrick Campbell, which was the 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:05.480 name that she used publicly and professionally throughout her her life. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.000 It was her stage name, but it was also what 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.679 people knew her as we will talk about her birth name. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.000 But we have to talk about names being tricky here 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.360 because in her personal life, some people, especially family members, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.680 called her Beatrice. Particularly older family members always called her that. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.119 Other people called her Stella. That was her middle name, 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.520 but she also had a daughter named Stella that comes 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:32.480 up a few times in this episode. So if we 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.120 refer to her by first name, we're using Beatrice just 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.279 to avoid confusion. But I think with her closest friends 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:43.280 and beloved she was Stella. She was also often called 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.199 Missus Pat, though even by people who knew her pretty well, 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.520 So we will generally refer to her either as Beatrice, 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.120 Missus Pat, or Missus Campbell when we're talking about her. 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.480 Her daughter Stella is only going to be called Stella 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.440 and will be the only one. Additionally, to make things 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.880 a little confusing, I feel like their family just liked 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.160 to play fast and loose with names and nicknames. Because 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.239 she had a son who was named Alan, he also 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.400 went by the nickname Bo and people referred to him 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.359 as that throughout his life. So if you hear either 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.760 of those, we mean her son, it's a lot. I'm 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.840 sure I missed something in there. So Beatrice Stella Tanner 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.640 was born on February ninth, eighteen sixty five, in London, England. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.480 Her parents were John Tanner and Maria Luigia Jovanna Romanini, 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.800 and according to Beatrice, the two of them fell in 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.760 love at first sight the first time they met in Bombay, India. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.840 John's father was an army contractor for the British East 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.960 India Company and Maria's father was a political exile, so 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.040 both of their families were there. Neither of them spoke 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.480 the other one's language, but John and Maria got married 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.880 while still living there in India and had six children 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.480 there before moving to London. Once they got to London, 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.480 three more kids, including Beatrice. According to Beatrice, when she 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.920 was tiny, she cried so much that the nurse the 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.640 family hired for her told her parents, quote, she is 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.520 not a baby, she is a tiger. She also caused 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.920 the same nurse unintelligent. Yeah, I told you she had 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.720 a biting tongue. In her autobiography, Beatrice wrote of her father, quote, 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.560 my father, it seems, managed to get through two large fortunes. 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.400 He was careless with money, exceptionally generous, delighting in business, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.840 enterprise and speculation. In that book, she details a letter 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.040 that he once wrote her, in which he explained the 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.640 various pitfalls of life that had cost him his financial security, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.240 and she concludes that discussion with quote, people who knew 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.520 my father well, spoke with much love of his extraordinary 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:57.960 kindness and buoyant spirits. As for her mother, Beatrice clearly 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.600 just thought the world of her. Reminisced about her beautiful 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.560 singing voice and how she spoke so many languages and 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.800 played guitar. She wrote of Maria Luigia, quote, my Italian 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.160 mother and her beautiful sisters were invested for me with 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.240 great romantic glamour that has remained with me, and the 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.599 few stories I was told about their youthful adventures delight 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.680 me now as they did when I was a child, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.840 and felt proud that they were my people. While her 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.640 eldest brother was away at school, he died unexpectedly, and 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.320 her father was often back in India, so her memory 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.799 of all of this appears to be her mother. In mourning, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.039 she describes her as elegant and beautiful, and also wrote 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.400 of her mother, quote, she gave me her great love 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:48.680 of beauty. She could not pass by beauty unnoticed. Beatrice's 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.920 mother influenced and nurtured her love of the arts, and 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.040 she wrote of it, quote from my mother, I learned 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.440 my love of music. Schubert was my first love. She 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.800 sang his songs in French with a touch a unsentimental simplicity. 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.400 My mother spoke to me with enthusiasm of the Italian 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.800 actor Salvini Rossi and Madame Roustori, also of the singers 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.560 Mario and Grisi and Adelina Patti. I do not think 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.360 she ever saw any of our English players. If she did, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.279 I never heard her speak of them. And writing of 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.159 herself and her formative years, she said quote, I think 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.480 I was neither a sweet, amiable nor amenable child. I 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:33.039 was physically strong, very affectionate, imaginative, but temperamentally alien to 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.400 those around me. I believe I was impatient with unintelligent 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.960 people from the moment I was born. A tragedy for 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:46.200 I myself am three parts a fool. She mostly speaks 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.720 of her childhood as pretty enjoyable, though one of her 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.000 favorite activities was digging holes in the garden and filling 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.200 them with water and then sitting in a mud bath, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.719 sort of inspired by tales of ancient Roman baths. This 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.840 caused her siblings embarrassment, though, because she often looked like 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.200 a wild child just covered in mud. Yeah. She tells 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.680 one story in her memoir about her sister basically having 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.080 a boy come over and what he was greeted with 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.479 was like this little crazed looking kid that was just 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.239 a mud pile. At the age of ten, Beatrice started 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:21.200 attending school in Brighton. She did not like it. She 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.400 found it dull, and she was also kind of generally 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.320 frightened and shy around people outside of the family. A 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.719 new period of upheaval came when, following the marriage of 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.120 her oldest sister, Nina, her father and brothers moved to 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.440 the US to help her uncle who was trying to 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.240 set up some business in Texas. So Beatrice, her sisters, 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.680 and their mother moved into a smaller home. Then her 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.160 mother's friend, Catherine Bailey, offered to take Beatrice to Paris 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:51.960 to live for a year to study French and music, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.120 which she did and that year, she said, quote filled 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.600 me with delight. But by the time she returned home 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.000 to England, the family for was really in pretty bad shape. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:07.120 A cousin of Beatrice's father named Eliza Hogarth heard her 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.680 playing the piano and thought she was talented enough that 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.840 she needed lessons, so Eliza offered to pay for her 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.000 to attend formal lessons at the Guildhall School of Music. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.040 Things went well there. They went well enough that Beatrice 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.280 won a scholarship to a three year music school in Leipzig, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.040 but she never used that scholarship because when Beatrice was seventeen, 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.840 she met Patrick Campbell at a card party. As we said, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.480 she was seventeen when she met Pat and he was twenty. 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.680 She described him as handsome and gentle, with the love 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.520 of nature and his family. They married just four months 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.760 after they met, and Beatrice never finished her music studies. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.720 They had eloped, and when they told Beatrice's mother, she 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.640 was not entirely happy. She felt that her daughter had 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:57.240 given up everything for a sudden romance. Beatrice later wrote 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.400 of this relationship quote, after more than thirty five years 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:05.080 of life, with its battles, its wounds, its every ready pain, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.160 it is not easy to write of the joy of 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.720 that first love. Incapable of pause or reckoning. With the 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.760 divine faith and courage of fearless children, we faced the 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.560 world we thought ours, and paid the price bravely. Beatrice 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.240 and Patrick had a son named Alan Urqhart Campbell. The 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.760 family called Alan Bo as a nickname. It's a variation 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.360 on Beatrice. Two years later, the Campbells welcomed their second 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.640 child that was a daughter named Stella. But unfortunately, Beatrice 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.800 and Patrick were faced with some unfortunate news. Patrick's health 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.440 had never been robust, and his doctor said that he 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.520 was too weak to remain in the city. Beatrice recalled 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.000 being terrified of what was going to happen to them, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.200 and at the time, she was still pregnant with Stella, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.280 and she describes this night where she couldn't sleep and 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.160 she was pacing in their small garden late at night, worrying. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.360 She wrote quote, I knew was not strong enough to 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.040 continue working in the city, and that I must help. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.880 I could not imagine what work I could do. I 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.560 had given up my musical scholarship and so was not 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.600 qualified for a musical career. My lovely baby and another 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.480 coming in a few weeks, must be provided for. I 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:21.200 was bewildered, lost with the daylight. Something entered my soul 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.120 and has never since left me. It seemed to cover 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.520 me like a fine veil of steel, giving me a 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.960 strange sense of security. Slowly I became conscious that within 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.960 myself lay the strength I needed, and that I must 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.880 never be afraid. In eighteen eighty six, she joined the 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.520 Anomalies Dramatic Club, which was a London group that staged 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.480 plays so its members could gain experience and hone their skills. 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.600 There were three hundred and sixty five members. They paid 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.960 three pounds, three shillings and dues to pay for the 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.360 plays that they were performing each year at the Town Hall. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.679 She was asked to play a lead role in one 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.000 of their stagings after the original actor got sick. Meanwhile, 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.520 Patrick's health got worse and his doctor prescribed him time 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.880 at sea in the hopes that he would improve. He 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.640 left first for Australia. The idea was that he was 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:13.720 going to stay with a family member who lived there 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:15.560 and he would look for work once he got there, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:17.959 and then he would send for Beatrice and the kids 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.720 once he settled. But that didn't work out and he 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.600 ended up moving from Australia to Zimbabwe. He found work 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.760 here and there, and for a while he was connected 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.840 with the imperialist Cecil Rhodes and his debier's Diamond operation. 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.240 Patrick would send checks home as often as he could, 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.360 although there were sometimes large gaps in between, and that 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.480 lack of steady income led Beatrice to ask Pat if 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.960 he was okay with her seeking professional acting jobs, and 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.439 he wrote back that he was supportive of this idea. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.840 So this is all the version of the events as 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:56.679 told largely from Beatrice's perspective. Seems that Beatrice was pregnant 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:00.120 with Alan already when the two lovebirds eloped. So there 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:04.080 are some interpretations of this situation that kind of take 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.600 the position that Beatrice entrapped Patrick in a marriage that 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.880 he never wanted. So in that interpretation, that's the reason 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.440 that he left to travel. Missus Patt never mentions the 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.280 date of her first child's birth in her memoir. That 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.960 may be why, but it does seem like Patrick was 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.560 truly almost always in precarious health. He wrote her a 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.520 lot of letters while traveling that indicate a tenderness and 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:33.240 a genuine love between them. I have some questions about 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.080 the medical advice he was receiving. Way, go to sea 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.160 well and like advising people to go to the seaside 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.640 with the salt air to recover their health, like that 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:49.200 was pretty common, but like taking on a boat taking 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.680 a long voyage that like that was recognized as being 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.520 really hard on your health. So I'm like, I'm confused here. Yeah, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.480 I mean, I think the thinking was that at least 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.839 if you buy this version of it. England, no matter 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.920 how remote you tried to become, was too industrialized at 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:08.680 that point for him to be healthy, and he needed 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.720 to get out of the country. That's my guess. I 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.720 don't think there's any validity to that, but that's what 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.800 I think was probably the logic and play. Beatrice started 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.040 working with a touring company in eighteen eighty seven which 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:25.160 put on almost exclusively Shakespeare plays. She made two pounds 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.840 a week initially, and she had to provide her own dresses, 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.319 and she started going by missus Patrick Campbell at that time, 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.000 and that was, as we said, her stage name throughout 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.280 her life. She wrote of her first professional appearance, quote, 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.160 when I came to the stage, my first feeling was 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.280 that the audience was too far away for me to 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.719 reach out to them. So I must, as it were, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.960 quickly gather them up to myself. And I think I 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.720 may say that this has always been the instinctive principle 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.320 of my acting. Whether it is the wrong or the 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.280 right principle, I leave it for others to decide. I 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.120 am sure I had no technique and my voice this 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.360 was the voice of a singing mouse. The papers praised me, 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.080 and they also praised my dresses, and I was very 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.400 proud and happy. From there, she really became an audience favorite. 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.880 She was often cast in leading roles, although she describes 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.640 herself as delicate and having to miss a number of 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.280 performances and one time coming down with typhoid and having 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.880 to sit out six weeks of shows. After weathering the 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.920 most serious of her illnesses, she describes regaining her health, 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.760 but not her faith in the world. Having come out 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.200 of this experience without the naive positivity of her youth, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.000 she knew that life was fragile and that Pat may 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.760 never really be able to provide for the family. Patrick 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:44.800 was away from the family for six and a half years, 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.200 during which Missus Pat, as she was often called, was 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.400 continuing her career rise. In eighteen ninety three, Missus Campbell 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.840 appeared in her breakout role in the play The Second 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.200 Missus tanker A. In this play, written by Sir Arthur 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:02.920 Wing Pinero, she played Paula. This is what's known as 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.760 a problem play, meaning that the central device of the 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.559 plot is driven by social issues that were considered controversial 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.240 in the time the play is written. It's a genre 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.400 that is credited in its early development to Alexandre duma Feis. 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.560 In the case of Panero's play, mister tanker A, a widower, 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.800 announces his upcoming marriage to a woman named Paula Jarmont. 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.680 That's Missus Campbell's character, who is considered a ruined woman, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.720 i e. She has had sexual relations outside of marriage. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.840 The two wed and their marriage is plagued by problems, 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.480 made much worse when mister Tankeray's daughter gets engaged unknowingly 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.600 to the man who Paula had an affair with years earlier. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.080 It is a drama and it ends tragically. But even 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.760 though some critics were really kind of displeased by the 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.760 subject matter and thought the whole thing was icky, Missus 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.440 Campbell's performance was raved over that had really not been 0:14:55.480 --> 0:15:00.800 a guaranteed situation. Rehearsals had not gone particularly well. Missus 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.120 pat developed what she called nervous exhaustion and some rehearsals 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:07.760 right up through the second dress rehearsal, she just walked 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.720 through her part with minimal emotion. But on opening night 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.720 she was in full force and the reviews really reflected it. 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:18.200 She was instantly famous in London, but she found this 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.120 attention Jarring, writing quote, I was surrounded by what seemed 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:27.200 to me intolerable curiosity. There were searching, thrill seeking questions 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:32.120 and strange, critical glances which offended me, sometimes arousing impertinent 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:36.120 courage on my part. She found herself trying to reconcile 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.560 the stage star that people perceived her to be, with 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:44.600 the quote fragile, unsophisticated young woman whose heart and nerves 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.040 had been torn by poverty, illness, and the cruel strain 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.240 of a long separation from the husband she loved. She 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.760 found the experience of celebrity and strangers speculating about her 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.800 life really isolating. I feel like this is one of 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.800 the earliest instances where people where someone really has insight 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.280 and is able to articulate what that feeling must be like, 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.000 of like why being a celebrity is actually quite stressful. 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.280 We are gonna pause here for a sponsor break, and 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.560 when we come back, we'll talk about some of the 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:30.400 challenges that arose in Beatrice's early fame. Although she was 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.360 lauded for her talents, Missus Campbell still was sometimes seized 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.120 with nerves during one of her performances as Missus Tankery. 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.600 Well into the play's run, she forgot all her lines 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.000 and she could not clearly hear the prompt that she 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.200 was given from the wings, so someone had to physically 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.720 walk on stage and hand her a script to read 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.840 from until she recovered. But she recovered so well that 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.280 the incident actually seemed to bolster her reputation instead of 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.960 harming it. As her career was really taking off. There 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.560 was a lot going on in her personal life. Her 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.480 father died during the second run of Missus Tanker A. 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.800 He was living in Texas at the time with her brothers, 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.760 so she found out via a letter. And then in 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.680 March of eighteen ninety four, Patrick finally returned from Africa 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.680 after six and a half years away. She wrote of 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.879 their reunion quote, when Pat arrived, I saw in his 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.960 eyes that youth, with all the belief and faith in 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.359 his own efforts and his luck had gone. His health 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.960 and his energies were undermined by fever, failure, in the 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.879 most bitter disappointments. Nothing had come of his hard work, 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.320 his hopes, and his sacrifice. The expression in his face 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.440 wrung my heart, But the old gentleness and tenderness were there. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.400 He still loved me. His pride in his beautiful children, 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.520 and in my success that was by reward. The transition 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.960 back to life together was kind of a strange one. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.359 Patrick returned to a wife who was famous and in demand, 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.359 and at a time when he kind of wanted to 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.840 take some time to have quiet family time at home. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:13.640 He became a curiosity to Missus Campbell's fans and the press. Additionally, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.159 Beatrice was busy. She had eight performances a week, so 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.119 that time together was kind of limited, but they were together. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.640 They were, by her accounts, still in love, and Patrick 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.600 supported her career as best he could in between relapses 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:33.480 of malaria. After the second Missus Tanka for Missus Patrick Campbell, 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.280 as the New York Times put it, quote, thereafter one 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:41.000 success followed another, It's not entirely accurate. There were definitely 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.520 some bad reviews in the mix, and some instances where 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.080 one of her performances and her run was especially uneven 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:53.399 due to her ongoing nervous exhaustion. Her next critically acclaimed 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.879 role was as Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.000 eighteen ninety five, but that was one where her opening 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.399 wasn't really strong. Although all the other shows were in 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.000 the case of one original play, Michael and His Lost Angel, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.320 she dropped out because she found it too vulgar and 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:15.440 the playwright's edits to it weren't sufficient. That play failed. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.680 She was blamed in part for the failure, but overall 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.280 her success seemed to climb pretty consistently. In nineteen hundred, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.600 she starred in Magda, which is a play about a 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.280 German girl who has left her small town and has 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.000 become a famous singer. Because of her leaving, her father 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.080 refuses to ever even speak her name again, and when 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.120 she returns home after having achieved fame, her father scorns 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:42.960 her and it is revealed that she had a child 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.960 out of wedlock and that pregnancy was the cause of 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.919 her leaving town. This leads to pressures to accept a 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.680 marriage proposal and a tense final scene where Magda's father 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.199 threatens to shoot her if she does not marry to 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.520 save her reputation. Both the play, which was trans from 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.119 the original German play written by Ermann Sudermann, and Missus 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.679 Campbell's performance were panned, but despite its rocky start, this 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.439 actually became one of her most popular roles, and that 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.600 play was staged many many times throughout her life due 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.479 to demand. In March of nineteen hundred, pat left again, 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.639 this time to join the volunteer horse regiment known as 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:26.520 the Imperial Yeomanry. That regiment was engaged in the Boer War, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.480 and on April fifth of that year, he was killed 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.919 in action. Beatrice took a week off of work and 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.560 then she returned to the stage. In addition to her 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.119 personal loss, she also felt responsibility to the backers of 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.840 the repertoire of the Royalty Theater. The theater was popular, 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.719 but it had not made its money back on the season. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.840 In an effort to try to get some fresh money 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.680 into the theater company, in nineteen oh one, Beatrice began 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.600 her first booking in the US and started doing a 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.840 tour there. This was part of a repertory engagement which 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.440 lasted for six months, and it included two of her 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.399 established claims to fame, the Second Missus Tankery and the 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:11.080 Notorious Missus Ebbsmith. The Notorious Missus Ebbsmith was also written 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.280 by Arthur Wing Pinero, and just as Tankeray, it debuted 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.000 with Missus Patrick Campbell playing the lead role. Her character, 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.440 Agnes Ebbsmith, is a woman who bucks social convention choosing 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.040 to live with a man she's not married to after 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.920 the passing of her husband. Agnes, in fact, is deeply 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.880 against marriage, having been very unhappy in hers, and she's 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:39.239 an outspoken advocate of society abandoning the practice altogether. The 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.240 entire plot plays out as the various people in the 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.920 lives of Agnes and her lover Lucas, try to intervene 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:47.959 to get each of them to behave in the ways 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.480 that conform to the various ideals that the other characters hold. 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.840 As with the second Missus Tankeray, this story resolves in 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.040 an unhappy way. In this case, the lead character is 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.000 ultimately being broken of her spirit. In nineteen oh two, 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.720 Missus Campbell was once again back in New York. This 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.720 time she was starring in various plays in repertory, including Magda, 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.879 Aunt Jenny, and The Joy of Living. But she was 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.600 not happy. The noise out on the busy street was 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:21.159 she felt bleeding into the theater and ruining her performances, 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.119 and she complained so much that forty Second Street was 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.240 covered in mulch to muffle the sounds of carriages on 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:32.119 the street for the run of this show. While in 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.399 New York, Missus Campbell also got a lot of attention 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.679 this time around when she allegedly went to a lady's 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.960 bridge party and walked away with twenty two thousand dollars 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:45.520 in winnings. In nineteen oh seven, theater became a family 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.760 affair for Missus Campbell. Her son Alan wrote a play 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.480 called The Ambassador's Wife. She would later write of this play, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.000 which she starred in and which her daughter Stella also 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.480 appeared in. It was quite a success in its way. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.639 Te teen oh seven, Beatrice also made news in a 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.800 less artistic way when she was staying at the Plaza Hotel. 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.200 Missus Campbell, in the course of the evening socializing, lit 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.640 a cigarette and the staff was shocked. She was told 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:17.040 she must douse that cigarette immediately, not because they didn't 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.719 allow smoking on the premises, but they did not allow 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.480 ladies to smoke on the premises. We're using the words 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:26.560 ladies instead of women here, very deliberately, because she was 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.160 informed that the hotel only sought ladies as guests, so 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:33.680 she should not smoke there lest the hotel's reputation be tarnished. 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:36.720 The years from nineteen oh nine to nineteen fourteen were 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:40.720 very tumultuous for Campbell. In nineteen oh nine, having become 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.280 her own manager and director, she took on a new 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:48.280 role as producer. Socialite Jenny Spencer Churchill, known publicly as 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:54.080 Lady Randolph Churchill, read Missus Campbell her play his borrowed plumes, 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.479 and Campbell offered to produce it for her. The opening 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.879 to a very specific crowd, given the status of the playwright. 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.320 The Times theater critic Aby Walkley wrote of the opening quote, 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.320