Blanche Walsh

Blanche Walsh (1873-1915)
American actress
(photo: unknown, USA, circa 1898)

This real photograph cigarette card is of the well-known American actress Blanche Walsh. It was issued in England with Ogden’s Guinea Gold Cigarettes about 1900.

‘WALSH, Miss Blanche (Mrs. W.M. Travers):
‘Actress, was born in New York January 4, 1873, her father being the late Thomas Power Walsh, at one time warden of the Tombs. Miss Walsh was graduated from Public School No.50 in 1886. She had long desired a stage career, and a year after her graduation she made her first amateur appearance at a benefit performance at the Windsor Theatre on the Bowery. She played Desdemona. Her début on the professional stage was made before she was sixteen years old with Thomas McDonough, in the melodrama Siberia. Her next engagement was with Marie Wainwright, with whom she remained for three seasons, appearing as Olivia in Twelfth Night, Zamora in The Honeymoon, Florench Marygold in My Uncle’s Will, Madeline in Frederic Lemaitre, Grace Harkaway in London Assurance, and Queen Elizabeth in Amy Robsart. She then went under the management of Charles Frohman, creating the rôle of Diana Stockton in Bronson Howard’s Aristocracy in 1892. After appearing as Kate Kennion in The Girl I Left Behind Me, she became Nat Goodwin’s leading woman, playing with him in A Gilded Fool, In Mizzoura, David Garrick, The Nominee, The Gold Mine, and Lend Me Five Shillings. As the leading woman of a summer stock company in Washington, D.C., she appeared in Pink Dominoes, My Awful Dad, American Assurance, My Wife’s Mother, and Romeo’s First Love. In 1895 she acted the adventuress, Mrs. Bulford, in The Great Diamond Robbery, and in November of the same year, when Virginia Harned became suddenly ill, took her place as Trilby in [George] Du Maurier’s play, continuing in it until the end of the season. The next season she was again Nat Goodwin’s leading woman, accompanying him on an Australian tour, and appearing, in addition to the rôles already played with him, as Lydia Languish in The Rivals, and Louise in Gringoire. On her return to New York she joined A.M. Palmer’s stock company, creating the rôle of Margaret Neville in Heartsease in October, 1896. She next played a dual rôle, brother and sister, in Straight From the Heart. After one rehearsal she took the heroine rôle, Edith Varney, in William Gillette’s Secret Service, and went with the company to the Adelphi Theatre, London, in May, 1897. Following an engagement with Sol Smith Russell in A Bachelor’s Romance at the Garden Theatre, New York, she became a member of the Empire Theatre Stock Company in January, 1898, to play Jeanne Marie in The Conquerors. In 1899 she gave up the place of leading woman in the Manhattan Beach Stock Company of Denver, Col., to star with Melbourne MacDowell in the repertoire of the Sardou plays which made Fanny Davenport famous. As Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, as Fedora and as La Tosca she made her mark as a tragedy actress. After several seasons she and Mr. MacDowell severed their association, and in 1903-04 she starred in a dramatization of Tolstoy’s Resurrection. The season of 1904-5 she was seen in The Woman in the Case. She opened the fall of 1906 in a dramatization of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata and toured in it. The seasons of 1907-8 she starred in The Straight Road. Miss Walsh married W.M. Travers in 1906. Her home is The Lilacs, at Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y.’
(Walter Browne and E. De Roy Koch, editors, Who’s Who on the Stage 1908, B.W. Dodge & Co, New York, 1908, pp.438-440)

‘Blanche Walsh, the famous actress, died at Lakeside hospital, Cleveland, a martyr to her profession.
‘At the close of a vaudeville engagement here two weeks ago Miss Walsh was operated on for appendicitis. Before she had recovered she insisted on going to Youngstown to fulfil an engagement. She collapsed there and was brought back here a week ago.
‘Miss Walsh first became ill while playing in Toledo five weeks ago. She played a week in Pittsburgh under a physician’s care and then came her in The Spoils of War. According to her husband, W.M. Travers, she suffered intensely and only finished the engagement so as not to disappoint her audience.’
(The Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Thursday, 4 November 1915, p.6a)

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Patti Josephs

a carte de visite photograph of Patti Josephs (1849?-1876), English actress (photo: Bassano, London, late 1860s)

‘MR CHARLES DICKENS is now well enough to take an active interest in the preparation of David Copperfield at the Olympic Theatre. The piece in its embryo state is exciting unusual interest. Mr [Sam] Emery has been engaged for the character of Peggotty, and Miss Patti Josephs for that of Emily. Mr Dickens is attending the rehearsals of David Copperfield, and Mr Halliday’s adaptation of the story will be produced with the full sanction and active co-operation of the author.’ (The Edinburgh Evening Courant, Edinburgh, Monday, 27 September 1869, p. 8f). Halliday’s adaptation of David Copperfield, entitled Little Em’ly, was produced at the Olympic, London, on 9 October 1869.

‘Miss Patti Josephs, a sister of Fanny Josephs, recently committed suicide by throwing herself from a window. She had been an inmate of the Philadelphia hospital. She was, some years back, at the Olympic and other London theatres, and in America married a Mr. Fitzpatrick.’ (Reynolds’s Newspaper, London, Sunday, 29 October 1876, p. 8b)

‘Death of Miss Patti Josephs.
‘London playgoers will deeply regret to hear of the death of this young and charming actress, who expired at Philadelphia on the 5th of October [1876], under circumstances of an exceedingly painful kind, which will be found detailed below by an American correspondent. Readily may be recalled a bright series of impersonations embodied during the last dozen years at the St. James’s, Olympic, Adelphi, and other Theatres. More especially will Miss Eliza Stuart Patti Josephs be remembered as the representative of Cupid in Cupid and Psyche at the Olympic, and afterwards at the same Theatre in Mr Halliday’s drama Little Em’ly, where she played Little Em’ly with a prettiness and pathos which won the warmest sympathy of the audience. After this most successful performance Miss Patti Josephs left these shores to fulfil an engagement in America, where she married Mr John Fitzpatrick, an actor well known in this country and much esteemed by all who enjoyed his friendship in America. Scarcely twenty-seven when she died, the young actress has prematurely closed a career which promised brilliant results.
‘Miss Patti Josephs had been confined to her residence for the past eight months with a complication of diseases, and on the evening of the 4th inst. she fell out of the third-story window of the building where she resided, at Eleventh and Locust-streets, Philadelphia, and, striking her head, sustained such severe injuries that she died shortly after being conveyed to the Pennsylvania Hospital. It is believed that, while temporarily insane from pain, she leaned out of the window, and,losing her balance, met with the sad accident that resulted in her death. She came of an old theatrical family, her father, the late Mr W.H. Josephs, having been a Manager of several Theatres in London and the Provinces, while her grandfather had managed a theatrical circuit in England. She was a sister of Mr Harry Josephs, the well-known comedian, and of the late Mr John H. Selwyn. Her sister Fanny is also an actress. Another one of her brothers is a well-known minister in Boston – the Rev. G.C. Lorimer of the Union Temple Church, in that city. Miss Patti Josephs made her first appearance in America at the Chestnut-street Theatre, Philadelphia, on the 14th of October, 1872, in Bronson Howard’s comedy of Diamonds, and became a member of the stock company at that Theatre. Miss Josephs next played at Fox’s American Theatre, Philadelphia, with Colville’s burlesque troupe, which included Harry Beckett, Willie Edouin, and Eliza Weathersby, and which opened there May 19th, 1873. In December, 1874, Miss Josephs and her husband became members of the stock company at Fox’s American Theatre, where they have remained ever since. She last appeared at Fox’s in The Hidden Hand, about the 21st of February, 1876. The funeral took place on Sunday afternoon, October 8th, and the body was interred at Mount Moriah Cemetery, a large number of members of the dramatic profession attending the funeral.’ (The Era, London, Sunday, 29 October 1876, p. 13c)