Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Sarah Siddons

The life of an actress.
Sarah Siddons was a renowned tragic actress of the 18th century. She was born on 5th July 1755, in a room above a small tavern in High Street in Brecon (Brecknockshire, Wales) into a theatrical family. Her father was Roger Kemble, the manager of the touring theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians, and her mother was the actress Sarah Ward, daughter of the comedian John Ward. Five of their children (they had 12 in total; Sarah was the oldest) and several grandchildren all became famous actors. Sarah was the most famous of them all. Acting was in her blood and, from an early age, she appeared on the stage in her father's shows.

Sarah bloomed into a beautiful young woman and, at 15, caught the eye of a member of her father's troop, a certain William Siddons. Her parents weren't happy at this match and decided to take Sarah off the stage and send her to work as a lady's-maid to Lady Greathead, of Guy's Cliff (near Warwick) for £10 a year, hoping the couple would fall out of love. Two years passed before her parents realised how deeply her daughter and William cared about each other and finally consented to their union. In 1773, the couple tied the knot. They had seven children, but only two of them survived childhood, and the marriage eventually ended in a formal separation. (Read entire post.)
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1 comment:

Gio said...

Thanks a lot for linking to my post!