LEST WE FORGET LILLIAN RUSSELL
(December 4, 1861 - June 6, 1922)

When Alexander Graham Bell introduced long distance telephone service on May 8, 1890, her voice was the first carried over the line. From New York City, she sang "Sabre Song" to audiences in Boston and Washington, D.C.


"I can still recall the rush of pure awe that marked her entrance on the stage. And then the thunderous applause that swept from orchestra to gallery, to the very roof."
                                Marie Dressler, actress

Her birth name was Helen Louise Leonard; birthplace, Clinton, Iowa.  Her father was a moderately successful publisher of the Clinton Herald but her mother Cynthia Howland Leonard was an ardent feminist.  When Clinton, Iowa proved too provincial for her influence to be felt in the suffrage and equal rights movement. the family relocated to Chicago where her influence could be properly exercised.   She attempted to organize the women of the city but soon her feminist societies became a thorn in the sides of the city fathers. But her daughter Helen, nicknamed "Nellie" would be influenced by her mother's beliefs that a person's sex should not determine her place in society.

When she was fourteen, Lillian Russell possessed a lilting soprano voice and her mother was convinced she could become an opera star. She selected Leopold Damrosch to coach her daughter, who at seventeen, was capable of attaining a high "C."  Her mother and teacher began to prepare her for a career in grand opera, BUT at 18 Helen demonstrated her independence and secretly auditioned for and got cast in a chorus part in Edward E. Rice's production of
H.M.S. Pinafore (1879).
    She was so beautiful that she was soon fighting off stage-door Johnnies. In spite of the disappointment of both her mother and Damrosch, orchestra conductor Harry Braham fell in love with her and they got married in 1880. In 1883 following the tragic loss of their infant son, the couple divorced.

TONY PASTOR, A MAJOR IMPRESARIO AND FATHER OF VAUDEVILLE
     Tony Pastor, producer at the Casino Theatre, heard her sing at the home of a friend and hired her on the spot. Fearing her mother's objections to her singing at music halls, he gave her a stage name and billed her as being from overseas.  On November 22, 1880, he introduced "Miss Lillian Russell, the English ballad singer, a vision of loveliness and a voice of gold." With her perfect complexion as well as hourglass figure, plus her soprano voice, she was on her way to becoming the greatest comic opera star of her era.

During the 1880s she performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas on both sides of the Atlantic.  She also married again to Edward Solomon, a pit musician and would-be composer of comic opera.    In 1883 she made her london debut in her husband's Virginia and Paul. Returning to America in 1885 she learned that he had been sued by an Englishwoman for bigamy and the second marriage was annulled.
     After a disastrous third marriage to a 'foppish narcissist' she walked out into the welcoming arms of Diamond Jim Brady and, while never lovers, they became lifelong companions and enduring friends. For forty years he showered her with extravagant gifts of diamonds and gemstones and supported her expensive lifestyle.
 
WEBER AND FIELDS
     In 1899 she joined the Weber and Fields's Music Hall, where she was happily engaged as the star of their vaudeville/burlesques.  She debuted in Fiddle-dee-dee which also featured De Wolf Hopper, 
Fay Templeton and David Warfield.  Other favorites were Whoop-de-doo and The Big Little Princess. Before the 1902 production of Twirly-Whirly, John Stromberg, who had composed several hit songs for her, delayed giving Lillian her solo for several days, saying it was not ready. When he committed suicide a few days before the first rehearsal, sheet music of "Come Down Ma Evenin' Star" was discovered in his coat pocket. It became her signature song and is the only one she is known to have recorded, although the recording was made after Russell's voice had deteriorated significantly.

Lady Teazle

Leaving Weber and Fields in 1904 she next played the title role of Lady Teazle, a musical version of The School for Scandal at the Casino Theatre and then began to perform in vaudeville.  After 1904 she began to have vocal difficulties, but did not retire from the stage. She switched to non-musical comedies and toured from 1906 to 1908 managed by James Brooks. Because her non-singing roles were not very successful, she returned to vaudeville and in 1912 experienced the first and most successful of several comebacks.  Weber and Fields took her on their triumphal national tour of Hokey-Pokey, which would be her last performance in a musical.
        Later the same year she was married for a fourth time, successfully, to Alexander Pollock Moore, publisher of the Pittsburgh Leader, and after her death, United States ambassador to Spain.

In 1915 she appeared with Lionel Barrymore in the motion picture Wildfire, which as based on the 1908 play in which she had appeared.  She continued to appear in vaudeville until 1919 when ill health forced her to retire from the stage permanently.

LEGACY
    Beginning around 1912 she wrote a newspaper column, became active in the women's suffrage movement (as her mother had been) and was a popular lecturer on personal relationships, health and beauty, advocating an optimistic philosophy of self-help and drawing large crowds.
      In 1913 she declared that she would refuse to pay her income taxes to protest "the denial of the ballot to women."  She did recruit for the U.S. Marine Corps during World War 1 and raised money for the war effort.  She was a woman of independent means and during the Actors Equity strike of 1919, she made a major donation to sponsor the formation of the Chorus Equity Association by the chorus girls of the Ziegfeld Follies.   In 1922 she traveled aboard the R.M.S. Aquitania from Southampton to the Port of New York and according to the NY Times, she "established a precedent by acting as Chairman of the ship's concert, the first woman to preside at an entertainment on shipboard."

A 1940 film about her presents a sanitized version of her life. It was directed by Irving Cummings who, as a teenager starting his career, had acted with Russell in the play Wildfire in 1908. It stars Alice Faye, Henry Fonda, Don Ameche, Edward Arnold as Diamond Jim Brady and Warren William.

She was known popularly as "The American Beauty." Her likeness appeared on cigar bands and matchbox covers. She was  the first pinup and love goddess and was instrumental in establishing the dignity and the art of the American musical theatre.  Effortlessly attaining eight high "C's" an evening, she brought to the music hall, the operetta, and burlesques the concept that refined talent, exquisite beauty and charm were not exclusive to the opera house.

RESOURCE:  Notable Women in the American Theatre. 1989
Contributor:  Donal Ray Schwartz

WIKIPEDIA     Lillian Russell which contains a link to
the only recording of "Come Down Ma Evenin' Star" (1912)