Mrs. Whiffen (original) (raw)

MRS. WHIFFEN

Actress, and pioneering crusader for Actors' Equity Association, Blanche Whiffen, best known as Mrs. Thomas Whiffen, or merely Mrs. Whiffen, was born in London, England, March 12, 1845, being one of the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Galton. Her mother was for a short time a singer in grand opera, as were also her two aunts, Louisa and Susan Pyne, the former of whom for seven years was proprietor of the grand opera at Covent Garden, in partnership with William Harrison. This organization toured America for three years, from 1854 to 1857. Without any amateur experience Miss Galton's debut took place in London in 1865 as a fairy in a burlesque, "Turco the Terrible," at the Royalty Theatre. In 1868 she was married to Thomas Whiffen and in the same year came to America as contralto of the Galton Opera Company, her sister Susan being the prima donna, her husband the light tenor and Alfred Kelleher, afterward her sister's husband, the tenor robusto. After two years of varying success in this operatic family she entered the dramatic field, returning to opera for a short while as the original Little Buttercup in" Pinafore, " in which her husband was First Lord of the Admiralty. Following that she was for six years at Mallory's Madison Square Theatre, New York, making a specialty of old women portrayals. She was in the cast of the original production of "Hazel Kirke," which ran 486 nights. Objecting to being typecast in "sweet" parts like Mercy in Hazel Kirke, she nonetheless made dear old ladies her stock in trade.

She next spent a year in England, returning to New York to begin her fourteen years' connection with Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Company. During this time she created a great number of parts, including the Blind Mother in "The Charity Ball," Mrs. Gilfillian in "Sweet Lavender" Mrs. Mossop in "Trelawney of the Wells," and (below, left, ) in "Old Heads and Young Hearts." etc.

After her husband's death, in 1897, came four years with Charles Frohman's company at the Empire Theatre, New York, and then seasons in support of Mary Mannering, Eleanor Robson, Ethel Barrymore and, the season of 1905-6, of Margaret Anglin, in whose production of "Zira" she was Lady Clavering. The seasons of 1906-7-8 she was seen as Mrs. Jordan in "The Great Divide" with Margaret Anglin and Henry Miller. She kept up a career onstage well into her eighties, playing in an all star revival of "Trelawney of the Wells" that toured the country as far as San Francisco.

Mrs. Whiffen was an active member of the Actors' Church Alliance and of the Actors' Fund and the first woman member of Actors Equity Association.

Her charming autobiography, Keeping Off the Shelf, was published in 1928.