LEST WE FORGET BLANCHE BATES
(August 25, 1873 - December 25, 1941)

A kindergarten teacher who became David Belasco's
leading lady and starred in several of his productions.

She came from a theatrical family. Her father and mother performed in stock companies throughout North America, eventually settling in San Francisco.  The family traveled to Australia in 1874 when Blanche was a toddler and while they achieved great success as visiting stars, her father was murdered in Melbourne in mysterious circumstances. Her widowed mother retuned to San Francisco to continue acting.

Blanche was the first female to graduate from the Boys' High School in 1889.  After a short stint as a kindergarten teacher, she joined L. R. Stockwell's company and played a variety of roles. She became the leading lady of T. Daniel Frawley's Denver stock company in 1894. She remained with his company until 1898 when she traveled to New York to seek engagements.

Hired by Augustin Daly in the spring, she played second leads for several months.  She played the adventuress's role in
The Great Ruby (2/9/1899) only to resign after the first performance, citing an "uncongenial" atmosphere. It was rumored that there had been a dispute over gowns or that she was jealous of Ada Rehan, Daly's leading lady.

A spectacular performance as Hannah Jacobs in Israel Zangwill's The Children of the Ghetto (1899) led to a 5-year  contract with Liebler and Company at $20,000 annually.  She also attracted the attention of David Belasco who hired her to play the lead in Naughty Anthony, a forgettable farce. Belasco added a one-act curtain-raiser, Madame Butterfly, adapted from the story by
John Luther long.  With the role of Cho-Cho-San, the deserted Madame Butterfly, she achieved star status.

Though tall and large-boned, she played the delicate Cho-Cho-San with such believability that critics and audiences were convinced that she was, in fact, petite and fragile.

The next role for Belasco was as the swashbuckling Cigarette in an adaptation of Quida's Under Two Flags which ran for almost two years in New York and on tour.   Her next major role was the tragic Yo-San in The Darling of the Gods which Belasco had adapted from another story by John Luther Long.

In 1905 she stunned audiences as Minnie, "The Girl," in
The Girl of the Golden West with her athletic vigor and stamina.

She ended her association with Belasco after two more plays and married George Creel, a Denver journalist with whom she had two children.  She remained on the stage and retained star status until her retirement in 1926.  Her last stage appearance was in 1933 when she played a character role in The Lake starring Katharine Hepburn.

FROM THE SOUVENIR BOOKLET FOR
UNDER TWO FLAGS
PUBLISHED BY H. R. RUSSELL IN 1901


MS. BATES AS CIGARETTE          
       


(From the collection of Mari Lyn Henry)

She achieved her greatest success as Belasco's leading lady but was not able to duplicate her success after breaking with him.  Unlike other Belasco proteges, she had demonstrated solid professional achievement and capabilities before working with him.

Her background in western stock companies provided her with a wide-ranging versatility, enabled her to shift from the fragile heroines of Belasco's pseudo-Japanese plays to the battling Cigarette or hard-drinking Minnie with no apparent strain.

She was noted for her realistic portrayal of emotions in all of her major characters that when combined with the lush sentimentality of Belasco's scripts and productions, helped create lasting impressions on turn-of-the-century audiences.





RESOURCE:  Notable Women in the American Theatre. 1989. Alan Woods