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Ellaline Terriss was a leading musical comedy star in the late Victorian Era, throughout the Edwardian Era, and into the Modern Era. She was the daughter of one famous actor, William Terriss (born William Lewin, in 1847; murdered by a disgruntled actor, in 1897), and the wife of an even more famous and accomplished one, Sir Seymour Hicks, whom she was married to, from 1893 until his death in 1949.

She was born Ellaline Lewin on April 13, 1871, in Stanley, the capital of the British colony of the Falkland Islands, when her father, then called William Lewin, was a sheep farmer. Lewin was an adventurous sort of chap, and had been a sailor and tea farmer, as well as an actor, before raising sheep in the South Atlantic. Eventually, he decided to give acting another chance, and returned to England with his family. He became a great success under the stage name "William Terriss." He was a swashbuckling type, nicknamed "Breezy Billy". He was murdered in 1897 as he was arriving to give a performance at the theater when his daughter was becoming a major star.

Ellaline made her debut in 1888 and was soon a critical and popular ingenue. She became a musical-comedy star in London in the 1890s, co-starring with Hicks in such productions as "The Shop Girl" (1894), "The Circus Girl" (1896) and "A Runaway Girl" (1898). In 1900 they appeared in the French farce "My Daughter-in-Law," on Broadway, Ellaline's only appearance on the Great White Way (Hicks had earlier appeared on Broadway in "The Shop Girl").

Hicks became an actor-impresario and, after the turn of the 20th century, began writing musical comedies and light comedies, in which he and his wife appeared. These efforts met with great success. With the earnings from his successful career, he built the Aldwych Theatre, in 1905, and the Seymour Hicks Theatre, in 1906 (the Hicks was renamed the Globe Theatre, in 1909, and eventually the Gielgud Theatre, in 1994).

The couple toured South Africa in 1911, and she retired from the stage in 1917. She did make a return to tread the boards in one play in the 1925-26 season, "The Man in Dress Clothes," which co-starred not only her husband but their daughter Betty Hicks, who was making her stage debut.

Ellaline first appeared in the movies in 1907, in two films made by director Arthur Gilbert, My Indian Anna (1907) and Glow Little Glow Worm, Glow (1907). In 1913, she appeared in three films with her husband, in which he reprized two of his greatest stage roles, Ebenezer Scrooge in Old Scrooge (1913) and the title role in David Garrick (1908). She appeared in a baker's dozen more films from 1914 to 1939, acting with both her husband and other luminaries such as Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson and George Arliss.

Seymour Hicks was knighted in 1934, which made Ellaline "Lady Hicks." He died on April 6, 1949, in Hampshire, England. She followed him on June 16, 1971, at the age of 100.

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Ellaline Terriss

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