Robson, Eleanor

(1878-1979)

   English-born Elise Robson came to the United States as a child with her mother, actress Madge Can-Cook. While her mother was playing in stock in San Francisco in 1897, Robson was called upon to replace a sick actress in David Belasco and Henry C. DeMille's Men and Women. As Eleanor Robson, she continued to act in stock. Cast as Bonita in the Chicago premiere of Augustus Thomas's Arizona (1899), she repeated the role in the Broadway production. Her skill and beauty caught the eye of producer George C. Tyler, who gave her a leading role in In a Balcony (1900), after which he presented Robson in Romeo and Juliet in 1903 and in her most memorable role, as the title character of the romance Merely Mary Ann (1903 and 1907). She also starred in Nurse Marjorie (1906), The Girl Who Has Everything (1906), Salomy Jane (1907), and The Dawn of Tomorrow (1909). When she married the wealthy August Belmont III, she retired from the stage, continuing to support the arts through a long charitable involvement with the Metropolitan Opera. She also collaborated with Harriet Ford to write the successful melodrama In the Next Room (1923).