Nellie Farren

Ellen "Nellie" Farren (16 April 1848 – 28 April 1904^[1]) was an English actress and singer known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre in London. For a quarter of a century there, she was "the best-known star of London burlesque".^[1]

Born into a theatrical family, Farren began acting as a child. She made her professional adult debut in 1864 and joined the company at London's Olympic Theatre, performing in Shakespeare, contemporary comedies, dramas and musical burlesques. From 1868 to 1892, she performed at the Gaiety Theatre, which specialised in musical burlesque, becoming famous in the male and principal boy roles, which permitted an actress in the Victorian era theatre to show her legs in tights. Farren gained a large following among the theatre's mostly male audience.

Farren created the role of Mercury in Gilbert and Sullivan's first collaboration, Thespis and created or played roles in works by Dion Boucicault, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, William Congreve and Henry James Byron, among many others. In the 1880s, she created roles in the series of famous Gaiety burlesques with musical scores by Meyer Lutz, often written by Fred Leslie. Some of her most famous of these later roles were the title characters in Little Jack Sheppard and Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué. She also became a co-producer of the Gaiety Theatre.

After Farren suffered an attack of rheumatic fever in 1891, her health forced to retire from the stage in 1892. A gala benefit for her was arranged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1898. It was attended by nearly the entire theatrical community at which the most famous actors of the day performed, and which raised the astonishing sum of £7,000 (equivalent to £985,000 in 2023) for her retirement.