Eleanor Robson Belmont
Belmont in 1916
Born
Eleanor Elise Robson

(1879-12-13)13 December 1879
Wigan, Lancashire, England
Died24 October 1979(1979-10-24) (aged 99)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Resting placeIsland Cemetery, Newport, Rhode Island
OccupationStage actress
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1910; died 1924)​
Parent(s)Charles Robson
Madge Carr Cook

Eleanor Elise Robson Belmont (13 December 1879 – 24 October 1979) was an English actress and prominent public figure in the United States.[1] George Bernard Shaw wrote Major Barbara for her, but contractual problems prevented her from playing the role. Mrs. Belmont was involved in the Metropolitan Opera Association as the first woman on the board of directors, and she founded the Metropolitan Opera Guild.

Early life

Eleanor Elise Robson was born on 13 December 1879 in Wigan, Lancashire. She was the daughter of Madge Carr Cook and Charles Robson. Her mother was an English-born American stage actress and as a young girl, Eleanor moved to the United States. Her father disappeared or deserted her mother in 1880, and her mother remarried to Augustus Cook in 1891. Cooke later sued her for annulment of their marriage.[2]

Career

Her stage career began at age 17 in San Francisco and she worked in stock companies from Honolulu to Milwaukee. In 1899, she was a member of the summer stock company at the Elitch Theatre—the original Summer stock theatre.[3]

She made her New York debut in 1900 as Bonita, the ranchman's daughter in Augustus Thomas's Arizona.[4]

Theatre poster, 1903

Her ten-year career as a leading Broadway actress included top roles in such plays as Robert Browning's In a Balcony (1900), Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1903) opposite Kyrle Bellew, Israel Zangwill's Merely Mary Ann (1903–04 and 1907), Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (1905), Zangwill's Nurse Marjorie (1906), and Paul Armstrong's adaptation of Bret Harte's Salomy Jane (1907).[5]

Philanthropy

In 1912, she started the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving (SPUG) with Anne Tracy Morgan.[6][7] Belmont joined the Metropolitan Opera's board of directors in 1933, founded the Metropolitan Opera Guild in 1935 and the National Council of the Metropolitan Opera in 1952. These organisations helped shape the multi-source public-private funding model used by US performing arts organisations in the ensuing decades[8]

Personal life

Upon her marriage to August Belmont Jr. on 26 February 1910, Eleanor retired from the stage.[9] August and Eleanor were married for over fourteen years until his death on 10 December 1924.[10] Belmont died in her sleep in New York City on 24 October 1979. She was 99 years old.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b Deirdre Carmody (25 October 1979). "Eleanor R. Belmont Dies at 100. Leader in Charities and the Arts". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2010.
  2. ^ "MADGE CARR'S TWO HUSBANDS. --- Augustus Cook's Suit for an Annulment of His Marriage" (PDF). The New York Times. 19 June 1894. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  3. ^ Borrillo, Theodore A. (2012). Denver's historic Elitch Theatre : a nostalgic journey (a history of its times). [publisher not identified]. ISBN 978-0-9744331-4-1. OCLC 823177622.
  4. ^ Eaton, Walter Prichard (1910). The American Stage of Today. New York, NY: P.F. Collier & Son.
  5. ^ Mantle, Burns and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., (1944) The Best Plays of 1899–1909, Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, pp. 375,377,429,449,478,531.
  6. ^ "Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving Issues Its Second Call to Arms. Mrs. Belmont and Miss Anne Morgan Plan a Big Rally in Metropolitan Life Building". The New York Times. 3 November 1913. Retrieved 16 December 2012. This society, formed as a vigorous protest against the growing custom of exchanging gifts at Christmas without sentiment, the custom of making Christmas gifts for the sake of expediency, or under any other form of compulsion, was organized last year, and carried on an effective and spectacular campaign in the closing weeks of the Christmas shopping season.
  7. ^ Paul Collins (13 December 2012). "The Original War on Christmas". Slate. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
  8. ^ Yellin, Victor Fell, "Mrs. Belmont, Matthew Perry, and the 'Japanese Minstrels'", American Music, v.14 n.3, Autumn, 1996, pp. 257–258.
  9. ^ "Eleanor Robson and August Belmont Wed. Married by Mgr. Lavelle at Actress's Home With Only Near Relatives Present. Honeymoon in The South. Star Of "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" Left The Stage on Feb. 12. Careers of Bride And Bridegroom". The New York Times. 27 February 1910. Retrieved 24 September 2010. August Belmont and Miss Eleanor Robson, the actress who crossed her stage career with the fall of the curtain on "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" at the Majestic Theatre, Brooklyn, on Feb. 12, were married yesterday afternoon at 5 o'clock at, the home of the bride, 302 West Seventy-seventh Street, Mgr. Lavelle. assisted by Father Byrnes of St. Patrick's Cathedral, officiating.
  10. ^ "August Belmont, Stricken in Office, Dies in 36 Hours. Financier and Sportsman Undergoes Operation, Rallies, Then Sinks into Coma". The New York Times. 11 December 1924. Retrieved 3 May 2011.

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