Ellen
Terry,
the daughter of a provincial actor, and sister of Fred
Terry, was born in Coventry in 1847. Ellen never went to school
and at the age of eight appeared as Mammilius in The
Winter's Tale at the Prince's Theatre in London.
After a brief marriage to the painter, George Frederick Watts in 1864,
Terry established herself as Britain's leading Shakespearean actress.
In 1878 she formed a partnership with Henry
Irving at the Lyceum, where he became actor-manager. Working closely
with Irving she dominated English theatre for over twenty years.
In 1903 Terry went into theatre management and with her son helped
to popularize the work of Henrik Ibsen and George
Bernard Shaw. Ellen Terry, who slowly sank into blindness, died
in 1928.
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