Maud Jeffries

Maud Jeffries
Maud Evelyn Craven Jeffries
Born14 December 1869
Willow Farm, near Lula, Mississippi, United States
Died26 September 1946 (76 years)
Gundaroo, New South Wales, Australia
OccupationActor
Years active1889–1906
SpouseJames Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878–1934)
Children2

Maud Evelyn Craven Jeffries (14 December 1869 – 26 September 1946) was an American actress. A popular subject for a wide range of theatrical post-cards and studio photographs, she was noted for her height,[1] voice, presence, graceful figure, attractive features, expressive eyes, and beautiful face.

She married James Bunbury Nott Osborne (1878–1934), a wealthy Australian grazier, Boer war veteran, and former aide-de-camp to New Zealand's Governor-General. Osborne was so enamoured of Jeffries that he joined her theatrical company in late 1903 in order to press his suit.[2]

Engaged in May 1904, they married in October 1904, and had two children together (one of whom died as an infant). Jeffries left the stage in 1906, and continued to live a quiet, very happy life, devoted to her family and her beautifully designed gardens, on their family property, "Bowylie", at Gundaroo, NSW, until her death, at age 76, from cancer.[citation needed]

An audience favourite wherever she went,[3] Jeffries' performances over a decade in New York, London, Australia, and New Zealand met wide critical acclaim, especially in the role of Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello and, in particular, for her creation of the role of Mercia in Wilson Barrett's masterpiece The Sign of the Cross. On viewing Jeffries' performance (when just 20) as Almida in Claudian, one critic observed:

In Maud Jeffries we have an almost ideal Almida. It is emphatically a part for a young girl, and Miss Jeffries made it throb with life and genius. So youthful an actress so capable of feeling, not merely interpreting emotion, ought to and will have a future before her.[4]

Wilson Barrett and Maud Jeffries (as Mercia): The Sign of the Cross (1895)
Maud Jeffries (1891)
  1. ^ In fact, her original leading man, matinee idol Wilson Barrett, had to wear elevator shoes (see the photograph of Maud Jeffries as "Kate Cregeen" and Wilson Barrett as "Pete" in The Manxman  – with Jeffries in bare feet and Barret (a) on raised ground and (b) wearing his elevator shoes – at [1])
  2. ^ Langmore, D, "Jeffries, Maud Evelyn (1869–1946)", in Nairn, B., Pike, D., and Serle, G. (eds.) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9: 1891-1939 (Gil-Las), Melbourne University Press, (Carlton), 1983.
  3. ^ "Miss Maud Jeffries, that talented young American lady whose supreme merit is gradually entwining itself around the hearts of English playgoers" (Theatre Royal, The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, (Tuesday, 3 October 1893), p.5).
  4. ^ Mr. Wilson Barrett as "Claudian", The Hull Daily Mail, (Tuesday, 17 November 1891), p.3.