Violet Vanbrugh

Head and shoulders of young white woman with dark hair, in a chiffon dress and hoop earrings, looking towards the camera
Violet Vanbrugh in 1907

Violet Augusta Mary Bourchier, née Barnes (11 June 1867 – 11 November 1942), known professionally as Violet Vanbrugh, was an English actress with a career that spanned more than fifty years.

Vanbrugh was from a family with theatrical connections. The actress Irene Vanbrugh was one of her younger sisters and a brother, Kenneth Barnes, became principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

She made her professional debut in an 1886 burlesque. In the same year she had her first West End speaking role and then joined a repertory company in Margate playing leading roles in four of Shakespeare's plays among others. She next played in J. L. Toole's company for two years. In 1889 she joined the Kendals at the Court Theatre and on tour in the US. Two years later, back in London, she joined Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in their Shakespeare company at the Lyceum Theatre. In 1893, she appeared opposite her future husband Arthur Bourchier at Daly's Theatre and soon became his leading lady at the Royalty Theatre and later at the Garrick Theatre, where Bourchier was lessee for the first six years of the 20th century.

Vanbrugh returned to Shakespearean roles in 1906 at Stratford upon Avon, where she played Lady Macbeth to her husband's Macbeth, and in 1910 they starred together in Herbert Beerbohm Tree's London production of Henry VIII. They divorced in 1917, after which Vanbrugh continued acting on stage until 1937 (making some further appearances until 1940) and appeared in films in the 1930s. In her fiftieth season on stage she starred in The Merry Wives of Windsor with her sister in London, and during the Blitz, the two entertained at matinees. She died at her home in London in 1942 at the age of 75.