LEST WE FORGET  FANNY JANAUSCHEK
       (July 20, 1830 - November 28, 1904)


       Honor and jewels were showered on her everywhere
       she performed!

An actress famous in classic revivals, particularly Lady Macbeth, was born in Prague, the fourth of nine children.  She studied voice at the Prague Conservatory and a professor persuaded her to study acting as well. For ten years she was the leading lady at the Stadtheater in Frankfurt, Germany and toured extensively throughout Austria and Russia.

During  her years in Europe, her repertoire included Schiller''s
 Mary Stuart and Joan of Arc, Goethe's Faust and Egmont and Shakespeare's Macbeth.


In 1867 Jacob Grau brought her to America where she remained until her death.  Her debut on October 9th at the Academy of Music was in Franz Grillparzer's Medea, which she performed in German while the rest of the cast supported her in English.  The New York Times reported: "Mlle. Janauschek has a handsome figure and sumptuous presence, aided by features that are in every sense expressive...
A human tenderness blending with an Eastern picturesqueness of gesture, and a refined sentiment prominent throughout every scene..." (October 10, 1867).

Fanny ad Medea

For several years she toured the United States and acted exclusively in German a number of plays including Medea, Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur and Lessing's
Emilia Galotti.

She also appeared with Edwin Booth as Lady Macbeth on several occasions. Booth had tried to sign her for the season, but she decided she would be unable to learn the roles in English. As a result of her warm reception and at the pressing suggestion of Augustin Daly, she began to study English intensively.
On October 9, 1870, three years after her American debut, Daly presented her at the Academy of Music in Deborah, performed in English.  An excerpt from the
New York Daily Tribune claimed "last night she acted an English part, and  surprised everybody by the accuracy of her speech."


After several seasons her control of the English language was complete, although she still retained a foreign accent. The Dramatic Mirror commented that 'she had a strong accent, which she never entirely conquered, but her art was so splendid that all faults of pronunciation were forgiven her."
Her Lady Macbeth, according to John Rankin Towse, was murderous in her ambition and energetic in the prompting of her husband to murder, but she loved him passionately and, in her own tigress fashion, tenderly. (Sixty Years of the Theatre)

The most important addition to her repertoire was the role of Meg Merrilies in the adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's Gay Mannering. She received considerable acclaim as the old gypsy woman, but she often regretted adding the role because it "established her in the public mind as a far older woman than she was."

By the 1890s the American public had lost its taste for her grand style of tragic acting and she lost both her popularity and fortune. In intervals between roles, she gave readings from the classic drama and delivered speeches on various aspects of dramatic art.


In 1900 she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her. Her fellow actors raised $5,000 to help her, but she was so destitute that finally her rich costumes and jewels were sold.  When she died in 1904, she was alone and destitute;  actors provided money for her funeral.

The comparison of Janauschek to Charlotte Cushman was in part due to their physical similarities, acting style, and portrayals of Lady Macbeth and Meg Merrilies.   John Rankin Towse insisted that her interpretation of Lady Macbeth was "fully as strong if less savage than Cushman's and manifested the redeeming quality of feminine devotion."

Resource: Notable Women in the American Theatre. 1989     Susan S. Cole