Twenty Second Issue: A Sheep-Farming Soldier, a Lesbian Peter Pan, and a British Playwright
My apologies that this newsletter has not been more regular. I have been having trouble finding things I want to write about! So as I mention always, suggestions are welcome.
Today I’m just going to talk about various people who I found interesting. The first is Sir Hugh Charles Rhys Rankin. I have no idea how I found his Wikipedia page but he certainly seems to have had an interesting life, at least for his time! He lived from 1899 to 1988 – many years! He was the son of a big game hunter and was born in the Tunisian desert. His parents sent him to elite British schools, but he ran away and worked in a shipyard for a while, then he joined the army.
In the army he became a broadsword champion in 1921, but he was injured and had to quit the army. He went to go be a sheep farmer in Western Australia, but then he inherited his father’s baronetcy (what a word that is) and travelled to the Middle East. He met a man called Lord Headley who had taken the name Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq (Lord Headley was a civil engineer in India and a boxer. He converted to Islam in 1913 and established the British Muslim Society a year later. In 1925 he was offered the throne of Albania but turned it down.) who convinced him to convert to Islam. So Hugh changed his name to Omar and became president of the British Muslim Society in 1935. However he didn’t get along with the other British Muslims and quit a few weeks later and decided to become a Buddhist instead.
During World War II, Hugh was a captain, and he also was elected to Perthshire County Council in 1950, describing himself as a “red militant communist”. He joined the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and he married twice. His nephew inherited his baronetcy when he died.
Another interesting person I’ve been reading up on is Maude Adams. Around the turn of the century all the way to the 1920s, women who were boyish were very in style. This is reiterated by the author of the biography on Joe Carstairs I’ve just been reading (I talked about her in a previous newsletter if you remember!).
Maude Adams was an actress, known for playing Peter Pan in the 1905 Broadway production. She was the most successful and highest-paid performer at the time, earning more than a million dollars a year. Maude’s mom was an actress too, and her father died when she was young. She debuted at age nine months old in her mother’s arms at Brigham Young Theater. She acted with her mother throughout her childhood with a theatrical troupe that travelled the Western United States. She performed in New York at age ten but went back to California and then Salt Lake City, living with her grandmother and going to school.
Maude returned to New York when she was 16 and performed on Broadway and also in Boston. A producer named Charles Frohman took control of her career, and Maude played leading roles with her mother instead of the juvenile roles she had been doing before. She was becoming noticed enough that playwrights were actually writing roles for her at this point.
In 1892, one of the biggest male stars at the time, John Drew Jr., joined Frohman’s company and was paired with Maude with a bunch of plays for about five years. Audiences came to see John, but were charmed by Maude’s “delicacy and simplicity”. She got twelve curtain calls and great reviews.
Frohman was working on getting J. M. Barrie to adapt a book of his into a play, but he wouldn’t. He said there was no actress good enough to play the main character of his book The Little Minister. Once Barrie saw Maude, he decided she was good for it. The play made Maude a star and had 300 performances in New York, the majority of which were standing room only! In 1904, Maude was the first actress to play Peter Pan. On Broadway, her costume’s collar, which she herself designed, was a fashion sensation, and is now called the “Peter Pan collar”.
Maude starred in other plays by Barrie, and was also Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1899. She also played Napoleon II in a French play in 1900, and she was Joan of Arc in a play in 1909 at the Harvard University Stadium. Maude got the flue in 1918 and retired from the stage. She worked with General Electric to design stage lighting and with the Eastman Company to get color photography. She began acting again after a little more than a decade, but just in regional productions of Shakespeare plays, and not in leading roles.
Maude was described as shy, and didn’t have any relationships with men, which helped Forhman promote her vinnocent image. Maude was a lesbian, and she had two long-term girlfriends - Lillie Florence from 1890 to 1901, and Louise Boynton from 1905 to 1951. Maude became head of drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943 and was known as an inspiring acting teacher. She was pursued for roles in film, but declined. She died at age 80 at her summer home in New York and was buried next to her girlfriend Louise.
Aphra Ben (born Susanna Freeman) was a British writer from the 17th century. She was one of the first English women to write for a job. The information on her early life is unreliable, which Aphra may have done on purpose. Her parents names and occupations vary depending on which version of her life story you read. She claimed that she travelled to Suriname as a young woman and during that trip she met an African slave leader who inspired her famous work Oroonoko. This is probably false but who knows. There’s no evidence that’s reliable to prove it either way.
Aphra probably married Johan Behn when she got back to England from Suriname, but he died in 1664. She took on his last name, going by Mrs. Behn. She was probably Catholic, and she was definitely a monarchist. She was living during the English Civil War, so these were definite sides to take that could mean life or death. She became attached to the court during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and was recruited as a spy in Antwerp on the behalf of King Charles II. Her code name was Astrea, and her job was to become friends with William Scot, who seemed to be ready to become a spy to report on what English exiles in Antwerp were planning against the King. She was supposed to make him a double agent, but he may have reported her to the Dutch so that didn’t go so well.
Astra was never paid for her work and she had to sell all her jewelry just to live properly. She began to work for the King’s Company and Duke’s Company theater groups as a scribe. She had written poetry before, but now adapted to survive. Theaters that had been closed under Oliver Cromwell now were reopening under Charles II. She wrote three plays, and then disappeared for three years. Maybe she was a spy again. Then she wrote a few more comic plays and became friends with other notable writers. She wrote against the parliamentary Whigs (she was a Tory). She also translated a French book about astronomy, called A Discovery of New World. All in all, she wrote and staged 19 plays, making her the second most productive playwright in Britain at the time. In her last years she continued to write despite her failing health making it hard for her to hold a pen. She died in 1689 and her tombstone says “Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defense enough against Mortality,” which is a pretty nice inscription I think.
Virginia Woolf wrote about her, in A Room of One’s Own:
Today I’m just going to talk about various people who I found interesting. The first is Sir Hugh Charles Rhys Rankin. I have no idea how I found his Wikipedia page but he certainly seems to have had an interesting life, at least for his time! He lived from 1899 to 1988 – many years! He was the son of a big game hunter and was born in the Tunisian desert. His parents sent him to elite British schools, but he ran away and worked in a shipyard for a while, then he joined the army.
In the army he became a broadsword champion in 1921, but he was injured and had to quit the army. He went to go be a sheep farmer in Western Australia, but then he inherited his father’s baronetcy (what a word that is) and travelled to the Middle East. He met a man called Lord Headley who had taken the name Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq (Lord Headley was a civil engineer in India and a boxer. He converted to Islam in 1913 and established the British Muslim Society a year later. In 1925 he was offered the throne of Albania but turned it down.) who convinced him to convert to Islam. So Hugh changed his name to Omar and became president of the British Muslim Society in 1935. However he didn’t get along with the other British Muslims and quit a few weeks later and decided to become a Buddhist instead.
During World War II, Hugh was a captain, and he also was elected to Perthshire County Council in 1950, describing himself as a “red militant communist”. He joined the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and he married twice. His nephew inherited his baronetcy when he died.
Another interesting person I’ve been reading up on is Maude Adams. Around the turn of the century all the way to the 1920s, women who were boyish were very in style. This is reiterated by the author of the biography on Joe Carstairs I’ve just been reading (I talked about her in a previous newsletter if you remember!).
Maude Adams was an actress, known for playing Peter Pan in the 1905 Broadway production. She was the most successful and highest-paid performer at the time, earning more than a million dollars a year. Maude’s mom was an actress too, and her father died when she was young. She debuted at age nine months old in her mother’s arms at Brigham Young Theater. She acted with her mother throughout her childhood with a theatrical troupe that travelled the Western United States. She performed in New York at age ten but went back to California and then Salt Lake City, living with her grandmother and going to school.
Maude returned to New York when she was 16 and performed on Broadway and also in Boston. A producer named Charles Frohman took control of her career, and Maude played leading roles with her mother instead of the juvenile roles she had been doing before. She was becoming noticed enough that playwrights were actually writing roles for her at this point.
Frohman was working on getting J. M. Barrie to adapt a book of his into a play, but he wouldn’t. He said there was no actress good enough to play the main character of his book The Little Minister. Once Barrie saw Maude, he decided she was good for it. The play made Maude a star and had 300 performances in New York, the majority of which were standing room only! In 1904, Maude was the first actress to play Peter Pan. On Broadway, her costume’s collar, which she herself designed, was a fashion sensation, and is now called the “Peter Pan collar”.
Maude was described as shy, and didn’t have any relationships with men, which helped Forhman promote her vinnocent image. Maude was a lesbian, and she had two long-term girlfriends - Lillie Florence from 1890 to 1901, and Louise Boynton from 1905 to 1951. Maude became head of drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943 and was known as an inspiring acting teacher. She was pursued for roles in film, but declined. She died at age 80 at her summer home in New York and was buried next to her girlfriend Louise.
Aphra Ben (born Susanna Freeman) was a British writer from the 17th century. She was one of the first English women to write for a job. The information on her early life is unreliable, which Aphra may have done on purpose. Her parents names and occupations vary depending on which version of her life story you read. She claimed that she travelled to Suriname as a young woman and during that trip she met an African slave leader who inspired her famous work Oroonoko. This is probably false but who knows. There’s no evidence that’s reliable to prove it either way.
Astra was never paid for her work and she had to sell all her jewelry just to live properly. She began to work for the King’s Company and Duke’s Company theater groups as a scribe. She had written poetry before, but now adapted to survive. Theaters that had been closed under Oliver Cromwell now were reopening under Charles II. She wrote three plays, and then disappeared for three years. Maybe she was a spy again. Then she wrote a few more comic plays and became friends with other notable writers. She wrote against the parliamentary Whigs (she was a Tory). She also translated a French book about astronomy, called A Discovery of New World. All in all, she wrote and staged 19 plays, making her the second most productive playwright in Britain at the time. In her last years she continued to write despite her failing health making it hard for her to hold a pen. She died in 1689 and her tombstone says “Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defense enough against Mortality,” which is a pretty nice inscription I think.
Virginia Woolf wrote about her, in A Room of One’s Own:
Sidenote, I really like Aphra's double chin and the amount of aliases she had.All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds... Behn proved that money could be made by writing at the sacrifice, perhaps, of certain agreeable qualities; and so by degrees writing became not merely a sign of folly and a distracted mind but was of practical importance.
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