Lesbian Stage Actresses In History From 1830s to 2020s

... the old gypsy, Meg Merrilies, in a stage version of Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering and she played over 30 male roles including Hamlet, Romeo and Cardinal Wolsey.

Cushman never married and had three known lady lovers: Rosalie Sully, daughter of artist Thomas Sully, who she gave a ring and noted in her diary "R Saturday, July 6, married"(1844). Bad timing Cushman had to leave for a London tour, but the pair agreed to reunite when she returned. Unexpectedly the tour lasted several years, in which time Cushman began an affair with another actress. Not long after Rosalie died. On hearing the news, Cushman suffered a mental collapse and cancelled shows to rest. Thereafter, in 1884 she met writer Matilda Hays who she lived in Rome for ten years, and when they split she had a relationship with sculptor Emma Stebbins. Hugely couragious for her time!

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... the first and, most popular male impersonator to appear on variety stages in the US.

She was officially married four times, to; Charles Vivian (an actor & ballad singer) in 1868 which only lasted 6 weeks; William W. Long (a minstrel performer) in 1878; ... Annie Ryan (her dresser) in 1886 (Hindle dressed in male attire and called herself Charles); and within months of Ryan’s death in 1891, she married her second wife Louise Spenghel!

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... in his traveling shows. Previously she had worked as a "dresser" for Annie Hindle.

Wesner caused huge scandal when she eloped to Paris with "Josie" Mansfield, who had been the mistresses of both Jim Fisk (a dodgy stockbroker) and his business associate, love rival and murderer, Edward Stokes (an owner of a New York oil refinery).

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... Russia and America and is most remembered for performing in Gabriele d'Annunzio and Henrik Ibsen plays.

A dabbler? In 1909, Duse retired from acting, met and became involved with Italian feminist Lina Poletti, a former lover of writer Sibilla Aleramo. For two years they lived together in Florence. Duse spent several weeks with dancer Isadora Duncan at the seaside resort of Viareggio, in 1913. There relationship was rumoured to be more than just pals.

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... highest earning woman and toured the American vaudeville circuit six times. During the First World War she was known as "England’s greatest recruiting sergeant" promoting enlistment drives through patriotic songs whilst dressed in soldier's khaki fatigues.

For Tipping The Velvet fans, sorry to pee on your parade - she was hetty! She was married to theatre impresario Walter de Frece (who became her new manager and songwriter), at Brixton Registry Office on August 16th, 1890 (across the road from me!)

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George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen and frequently played the role of Rosa Bonheur, a lesbian artist. From 1916 until Craig's death, Craig lived in a ménage à trois with dramatist Christabel Marshall and artist Clare 'Tony' Atwood.

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... Women's Freedom League and Actresses' Franchise League, for whom she wrote The Pageant of Women (1909), which was performed all over Britain and is one of the most frequently performed suffrage plays and the feminist one-act play How the Vote was Won (1910). She also wrote the words to the rousing suffragette anthem "The March of the Women" which was composed by Ethel Smyth. Indeed she wrote nine plays.

Though it is indicated she batted on our team, I have to get back to her as can't find any info about her Sapphic life.

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... London Repertory Seasons at the Savoy Theatre in London and the Actresses' Franchise League. As a suffragette she was arrested for stone throwing and imprisoned in Holloway Prison and she became the Pankhursts' chauffeur. Upon the outbreak of WWI, in 1914, Holme joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service serving in Serbia and Russia. As a prisoner of war, Holme was imprisoned for some months in Austria.

Before WWI, Holme's met Evelina Haverfield (a fellow suffragette and WWI nurse) and they were companions from 1911 until Haverfield's death in 1920 (excluding one naughty affair with the artist Dorothy Johnstone). They helped to build a children's health centre in Bajina Basta, Serbia which was later named after Haverfield.

The "Foosack League": with Haverfield, Alice Laura Embleton (a cancer scientist), and Celia Holme (a fellow suffragette, WWI nurse and an architect), Holme's set up the private "Foosack League". The membership was restricted to women and suffragists but it has been suggested the "Foosack League" was a secret lesbian society. Bravo!

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... from the 1930s until her death, performed at the Moscow Puppet Theatre. From 1916 to 1926, Erarskaya was the lover-muse of poet Sophia Parnok (who was the only openly lesbian voice in Russian poetry) and the inspiration for one of Parnok's masterpieces, the dramatic poem and libretto for Alexander Spendiarov's opera Almast. During the Russian Civil War years, she and Parnok lived in Sudak, Crimea (1917 - 1922) and Erarskaya staged productions to entertain the intellectual community who were living there, such as Adelaida Gertsyk (a Russian poet), Alexander Spendiarov (a Russian composer), Eugenia Gertsyk (a Russian writer), and Maximilian Voloshin (Ukrainian-born Russian poet).

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... Juliet, Queen Anne and Lady Macbeth and she also appeared in films such as The Tudor Rose. On retiring from the stage in 1970, her career continued on TV and radio and at the age of 100 (in 1991) her final role was in the TV series The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. Also at the age of 100 she received a damehood and was at the time the oldest person to have received the honour.

In London, Gwen met South African actress Marda Vanne (born Margaretha van Hulsteyn). They became theatrical partners and lifelong partners until Marda's death in 1970. When Gwen went to South Africa in 1941, they founded the Gwen ffrangçon-Davies / Marda Vanne Company. The company toured over 44 towns in South Africa and presented seasons of plays during the war years until 1946 performing such plays as Barrie's Quality Street, Twelfth Night, Blithe Spirit, Merry Wives of Windsor...

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... famous role was that of English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street which she later appeared in the television adaptation. With her theatre director husband, Guthrie McClintic, the couple formed C. & M.C. Productions, Inc., which gave them complete artistic freedom in choosing and producing plays.

Their marriage was indeed a Lavender Marriage as Guthrie was gay and she, a lesbian. They bought a three story townhouse in Manhattan where they shared the bottom floor and McClintic occupied the second while Cornell the third. Cornell was a member of the "sewing circles" in New York, and had relationships with stage and screen actress Tallulah Bankhead, playwriter and poet Mercedes de Acosta, and others. Cornell met actress and playwriter Nancy Hamilton during the production of the 1955 documentary The Unconquered (produced by Hamilton and narrated by Cornell) which told the life story of Helen Keller, an American deaf-blind author and disability-rights activist and which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Cornell and Hamilton became life partners who lived together.

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... veteran vaudeville entertainer of the Chitlin' Circuit (the name given to venues in the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the US that provided a safe haven for African American performers to perform during the awful era of racial segregation.)

Moms Mabley became famous for her persona as a frumpy, middle-aged woman in a house dress and floppy hat delivering hilarious stand-up comedy routines. But those who knew her off-stage said she would quickly shed her dress and changed into stylish slacks, silks shirts and a fedora and was referred to as as Mr. Moms. In the 1940s, when she performed at the Howard Theatre in Washington, she socialised with a gang of lesbian and gay friends. On one occasion Mabley organised an after-show "gay" party at a nearby nightclub that was raided by police. Check out the documentarty narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.

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... became a major star on stage and in films. Not wishing it, Giehse was especially popular with Hitler and his Nazis, who often attended the theatre "Finally a real German woman in this Jew-infested house!"

In 1933, Therese Giehse, Erika and Klaus Mann (sister & brother) and the musician Magnus Henning founded the literary cabaret Die Pfeffermühle (The Pepper Grinder) in Munich. As the cabaret, was staunchly anti-Fascist, it only lasted two months before being shut down by the Nazi Party, but during its short lifespan, Die Pfeffermühle became a hub for underground resistance fighters and LGBT community in Munich. Giehse with the Manns, fled to the Mann family in Switzerland on 13 March 1933. It was round about this time Giehse had an affair with Erika Mann (an out lesbian) but in later life Giehse refused to discuss this with her biographer Monika Sperr. Ironically Erika Mann played an uncredited role (Frl. von Atems) in the original 1931 version of Mädchen in Uniform (one of the earliest lesbian films) and twenty seven years later, Therese Giehse played the Headmistress in the '58 remake of it.

From Zurich she fled to Belgium from 1934 to 1936, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Austria to Czechoslovakia. Since Hitler had stripped Jews of their German citizenship and as a way of obtaining a British passport, Giehse married the gay English author John Hampson-Simpson in 1936. In exile, Giehse played the first Mother Courage in the world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play Mutter Courage Und Ihre Kinder, in 1941 at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, Switzerland. During the 1950's and 60's Giehse performed the great female roles of Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. After her death streets have been named in honour of her in Germany and Switzerland: Therese-Giehse-Allee in Munich, Therese-Giehse-Bogen in Hamburg, Therese-Giehse-Strasse in Berlin and Therese-Giehse-Strasse in Zurich.

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... gold mine heiress, in 1926, Eva Le Gallienne founded the Civic Repertory Theatre which produced 37 plays during it's 10 years existence. Among her most well-known roles she played Hamlet, Peter Pan, the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stuart, and other roles from Chekhov and Ibsen. She also founded a free school for actors, The Apprentice Group.

She was a recipient of the Handel Medallion (New York's cultural award) for her heroic efforts in building up the theatrical world, a Tony Award (1964), and the National Medal of Arts (1986). President Roosevelt offered her the directorship of the National Theatre Division of the Works Progress Administration but she declined the appointment.

As she often hung out with actresses Tallulah Bankhead, Estelle Winwood and Blyth Daly, at the Algonquin Hotel, the four were nicknamed "The Four Horsemen of the Algonquin", referring to the Algonquin Round Table, a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits who met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel during 1919 until 1929. Indeed, Le Gallienne had an affair with Tallulah Bankhead.

It was no secret that Le Gallienne was a lesbian, and she had numerous relationships with famous women of the time. One of her earliest relationships was with the Russian actress Alla Nazimova. She also had relationships with Mercedes de Acosta of the "Sewing Circle" and Margaret Webster. Le Gallienne became a media target when word got out of her affair with the married actress Josephine Hutchinson. Hutchinson's husband cited Le Gallienne as the cause of their divorce. While Hutchinson was willing to be a faithful wife to Eva Le Gallienne, the Eva refused to stay faithful. At one point, when Eva Le Gallienne met another actress, Marion Evensen, the three of them lived under one roof. She soon lost Hutchinson and Evensen became her long-time companion.

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... she appeared in Anastasia, Men in White, Subway Express, Success Story and Waiting for Lefty. Of her movie roles she was most known for Mrs. Nellie Garth in Botany Bay.

Patten was born in to a wealthy family, part of the Chattanooga Medicine Company founders, with her farther being Z.C. Patten Jr. After his death, she donated their family home to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga which funded a grant named after her, "Patten Performances". Not only this fund theatre performances in Chattanooga it brought in extra revenue for the University.

Patten never married and was linked romantically with actress Cheryl Crawford in the 1930s, who together with Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg formed The Group Theatre in 1931. After the break-up of her relationship with Crawford circa 1937, Patten became linked to Cecelia McMahon, who became her lifelong companion.

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... philanthropist. Hilda Gobbi was born into an Italian family whose grandfather was Alois Gobbi, a well-known Hungarian composer and conductor. After studying at the Academy of Drama and Film (1932 to 1935) in Budapest (which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) she began performing at the National Theater.

Over fifty years Hilda performed on stage, film and radio in a wide range of productions from comedy to tragedy, and was noted for her humour and caricatures, particularly for her portrayals of elderly women. one of her most popular performances was her role as Aunt Szabó in the Hungarian radio soap opera, The Szabó Family.

During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Hilda worked with the Resistance - her father created forged documents to exempt men from military service (to fight for the Germans), which she distributed.

Hilda was a very kind lady: founding two homes to care for elderly actors (the Árpád Horváth Actor's College (1947) and Árpád Ódry (1950) and the Gizi Bajor Actor's Museum (1952). On her 70th birthday, in 1983, she received a monetary prize which she offered to have the National Theater refurbished. She left her estate to the National Theater with instructions to sell her home in Buda and use two-thirds of the proceeds to set up an annual award named the Aase Award, to be awarded to the season's best theatre production. The other third was to provide an actors' assistance fund.

Throughout her career, Hilda was awarded numerous honours, the: Wolf Ratko Prize (1941), the Kossuth Prize (1949), Artist of Merit (1950), Outstanding Artist (1955), the Labor Merit Gold Grade (1973), SZOT Prize (1977), Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary (1983), and The Order of the Enlightened Flag of the Hungarian People's Republic (1988)".

Hilda was very courageous - she was open about her lesbian orientation, often dressing in men's clothing. In Hungary, homosexuality was illegal until 1961 when homosexuality was... classified as a mental illness! From the late 1950s to 1960s she lived with Hédi Temessy (a well respected Hungarian actress) in Buda. When they split Hilda became the long time partner of the writer, Erzsébet Galgóczi who was 17 years younger than her.

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... lead France to victory in its long-running war with England). To date she has written 65 plays, musicals, and one-woman shows and 9 books on lesbian theatre.

Cage has received numerous nominations for awards and won Curve Magazine's National Lesbian Theatre Award, for Ugly Ducklings and The Best Stageplay, Moondance International Film Festival, Colorado, for Sappho in Love.

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... Best Actress in a Play, three Drama Desk Awards. Moreover, she has acted in films and on TV such as Boy Erased (2018) and The Handmaid's Tale (2018 - 2019).

Her theatre roles have included: Amanda Wingfield (a faded Southern belle) in The Glass Menagerie, for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, Cecily Cardew in The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Macduff in Macbeth, and in Angels in America (a Pulitzer Prize wining play about AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s.)

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