LEST WE FORGET MATILDA HERON
(December 1, 1830 - March 7, 1877)


Praised for her definitive performance in La Dame aux Camelias, she was born in Londonderry, Ireland, the youngest of five children. In 1842 her father moved the family to Philadelphia and her favorite brother developed into a successful businessman becoming president of the Heron line of coastal steamers.  Matilda attended a private academy situated very close to the prestigious Walnut Street Theatre. Stage struck, she studied elocution with Peter Richings, who groomed her for her theatrical debut at age 21 playing Bianca in Hart Milman's tragedy Fazio.  

Encouraged by her reviews, she was cast in romantic roles in stock companies, including Juliet at the National Theatre (Washington, D.C.) opposite the great Charlotte Cushman as Romeo.

In the winter season of 1854-1855, she reprised Bianca at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. While abroad she attended a performance of La Dame aux Camelias in Paris. Her brother suggested she translate the play, entitled Camille, as a starring vehicle for her.  Before bringing the play to New York, she presented it in St. Louis and other cities with increasing success.

When she appeared at Wallack's Theatre in New York (Jan. 22, 1857) the New York Herald critic wrote that she produced striking effects with electric rapidity.

HISTORY OF CAMILLE IN AMERICA
  She was not the first American actress to play Marguerite Gautier, the courtesan who sacrificed her own happiness for the benefit of Armand, her lover.  Prominent theater critic  William Winter would write: "Other parts she acted; that one she lived."
    Jean Davenport had appeared in a censored version of Camille, which was then a very daring play.  Ms. Heron's version was candid, her style, naturalistic, less refined than that of the actresses who preceded her.

Although she was attractive with dark hair, flashing dark eyes, and a pure complexion, she was not conventionally beautiful. She achieved her effects on stage by the force of her intelligence and by a magnetism admired by critics who found her coarse and her accent too Irish.  Instead of idealizing Camille, she portrayed her as a suffering, passionate woman, which William Winter wrote in her obituary was a reflection of her own tempestuous life.
     At the height of her career she also played Medea in her own translation of Ernest Legouve's Medee. Whether she was dying for love or killing for love, she successfully conveyed the emotional storms of her stage characters.
      Her example influenced such actresses as the emotional
Clara Morris and helped inaugurate the realistic theatrical style of the early twentieth century.
                                           

      A benefit show was held at Niblo's Garden Theatre to raise funds for her in 1872.  Participants included Edwin Booth, John Brougham,
Jules Levy and Laura Keene.

     She acted until 1875 after which she lived quietly in New York City as a teacher of elocution.  Having had health issues throughout her career, she died at the age of 46, with 'Camille' engraved on her casket along with her real name.   She reportedly "suffered in her last days mental as well as physical pain which many strong men would have sunk under."

Her second marriage to the composer Robert Stoepel produced a daughter, Helen Wallace Stoepel, better known as actress  Bijou Heron (1862-1937). Bijou married the actor Henry Miller and their son was the famed theatrical producer Gilbert Heron Miller.

REFERENCES:  Notable Women in the American Theatre. 1989   Mary R. Davidson
Heron, Matilda (1830-1877)  https://pfaffs.web.lehigh.edu/node/54284
Wikipedia