Other editions of book Life on the Stage

Life on the Stage by Clara Morris is an classic actor biography that tells the personal experiences and recollections of a life on the stage. Clara Morris (March 17, 1849 – November 20, 1925) (her birth date is sometimes given as 1846/48) was an American actress. Born in Toronto, Canada, her real name was Morrison. She was reared in Cleveland, Ohio, where at the Academy of Music she became a member of the ballet under the management of John A. Ellsler, and afterward a leading actress. For some years after 1885, she devoted herself mainly to literary work, writing: Little Jim Crow, and Other Stories of Children (1899); A Silent Singer (1899); Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections (1901); A Pasteboard Crown (1902); Stage Confidences (1902); The Trouble Woman (1904), fiction; The Life of a Star (1906); Left in Charge (1907); New East Lynne (1908); A Strange Surprise (1910); and Dressing Room Receptions (1911). In her book Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections she recounts her meeting with John Wilkes Booth the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Complete blindness overtook her in 1910, and her old age was embittered by poverty. The house in which she had lived for 37 years was sold in 1914, and Morris moved to Whitestone, Long Island. After becoming a member of the ballet and relishing the success working under John A. Ellsler, she continued to work with him for ten years; ending up going from playing minor roles one night and major roles the next, until eventually sharing the leading business of the theatre with her manager. In the season of 1868, she ended her engagement with him. Her next manager, Bernard Macauley of Wood's Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio, only worked in her company for a little over a year, after which she moved to New York in 1870 as a member of Augustin Daly's company. Mr. Daly engaged her to play in the Fifth-avenue Theatre, then located on West Twenty-fourth street; not as a leading act, but to fill whichever roles he deemed necessary. In the season of 1870-71, Man and Wife was in preparation for opening when the lead lady originally designated to play the role of Anne Silvester declined the part, and Ms. Morris stepped up to the position. On the opening night, September 13, she made her first debut in a major city, and ended up being recalled in an early scene in the play before the act was terminated - an unusual occurrence in the theatre at the time. In 1872, she made a sensation in L'Article 47. Other successes followed and she became known as an actress distinguished for spontaneity and naturalness.

“Read the book; it will speak for itself eloquently, for it overflows with quick, natural wit, real pathos, fine womanly courage, and – it rings true….It will happily introduce one of the most humorous, sympathetic, and human of women. From my heart I wish the work the success it deserves.” -Madame de Navarro “I wonder if a new possession for ever or only a floating memoir of the time has been added to the stores of English literature in the book before me. Of the effect of it upon my individual heart and taste I can recognize no doubt at all. I have read nothing like it for many a long day. I might run on about this fascinating book forever; it bristles with genius in every chapter. I might even spoil my purpose of inviting all men, and all women, too, to fall in love with cold-blooded Clara Morris for themselves, and thank her for one of the greatest treats any new book has given us for a long day. I believe that it will live for a yet far longer, and be a book forever. Great autobiography has an underlying charm.” -Herman Charles Merivale, The World “A page of living psychology, which is as charming as it is instructive, as new and fresh and real as it is technically important. It rings with so true, so sincere, so simple a note that Clara Morris becomes to the reader of her life a friend, a friend whom he admires and loves. A fascinating book which ought to be in the hands of every dramatic critic and every actor and actress. It is, however, more than a mere book of an actress’s experiences; it is a human document of no little value.” -W. I. Courtney, The Daily Telegraph “Miss Clara Morris tell us the story of her career with a wealth of human interest and a literacy skill equally welcome and surprising. She can describe an incident with a few quiet touches and then light it up with a sudden flash of passion that is in no sense artifice, but an electric shock from a sincere and sensitive nature. Truth and the insight of a born writer, who seizes the heart of a subject and discards the trappings, are visible on every page.” -The Daily Chronicle “Nobody who wants to know human nature in some of its most entertaining aspects should neglect this work. Miss Morris is a convincing writer. It is a bit of life she gives in her book. The vital quality of emotion is brought into the book, and invests with a characteristic charm the story of a life of most exacting work, and of a hundred hardships borne before its ultimate success.” -The Scotsman

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