Russell, Annie

(1864-1936)

   English-born actress Annie Russell spent her youth in Canada, making her stage debut as a child in a Montreal production of Miss Multon (1872), starring Rose Eytinge, after which Russell made her first New York appearance in the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore (1879). She spent some years on arduous tours to South America and Australia, but returned to New York to score a personal triumph in the title role of Frances Hodgson Burnett and William Gillette's Esmeralda (1881). Critics and audiences appreciated Russell in leading roles in Elaine (1887), an adaptation of Tennyson's Lancelot and Elaine, as well as in Bret Harte's Sue (1896) and Clyde Fitch's The Girl and the Judge (1901). She also played Puck in a 1906 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream when she established the Old English Theatre Company, with which she played roles in Shakespearean and Restoration comedies. Russell appeared in Edward Sheldon's controversial drama The Nigger (1909) and Henrik Ibsen's Brand in 1910. She retired from the stage in 1918.