Davenport, Fanny

(1850-1898)

   Born in London, Fanny Lily Gipsy Davenport was the first child of American actor E. L. Davenport (who had come to London as Anna Cora Mowatt's leading man) and English actress Fanny Vining. The Davenports moved to America in 1854 and settled in Boston, where Miss Fanny was educated. She soon began playing child roles at the Howard Athenaeum, which her father managed from 1859. Her early adult line of business was soubrette roles in a stock company in Louisville, Kentucky, and then at Philadelphia's Arch Street Theatre. On 29 September 1869, she made her very successful debut with Augustin Daly's company at his Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York. She remained with Daly until 1877, triumphing notably as Mabel Renfrew in Pique, which Daly wrote for her and which achieved a run of 238 performances. She then toured as a star with a repertory of Shakespeare, melodramas, and English comedies. In 1883, she began acquiring the American rights to the French actress Sarah Bernhardt's vehicles (Fedora, La Tosca, Cleopatra, and Gismonda), all of which she performed with considerable success. In 1889, she married her second husband, matinee idol Melbourne MacDowell.