The Irish standard., 1895-11-09
our MARY'S HAPPY LITE. D
.rlatters Of Interest Concerning
the Once Great actress.
Mary Anderson.
Retutation Of the Stories Told
About Her Unhappy y
r1arriage.
But She Has Turned Into ia
tronly-Looking Woman With
Dairymaid Cheeks.

] Dairymaid Cheeks.
Recent advices from England concern
ing Mary Anderson are that she Is in
moor health. She is at Brighton, where
she is wheeled about in bath chair. Ma
yarro, her husband, looking pale and hag-
gard. follows her closely all of the time.
She is said to- be amazingly changed.
All of the sylph-like indications OF her
pretty figure and the somewhat ethereal
face are gone, and she has turned into
matronly- looking woman with plump,
dairymaid cheeks, says the Philadelphia
Catholic Times.
| Mary Anderson will never be seen on
| the stage again. few months ago she
became mother, and her child dled on
the same day it was born. She has BEEN
writing her memoirs for the past two
years, and the publication OF them has
been expected long ere this.
John w. Norton, the well-known theat-
rical manager, who lost his life in the ter
lrible wreck on the Vandalia line near In
dianapolis a few months ago, is generally
understood among knowing ones TO nave
heen Mary Anderson's first love. 1t was
he who first brought Miss Anderson out,
and under his management her success
was almost instantaneous from the first
He plaved Romeo to her Juliet. He was
a. handsome, charming fellow and created
an impression on "Our Mary's' heart that
her intimate friends and acquaintance
always thought to be lasting.
THE writer has known Miss Anderson
we'll ever since her debut in Louisville,
and is familiar with the circumstances OF
her life thereafter. The life of Mary An
| derson is unique chapter in the stage
lore of the nineteenth century. Hlstl-
roniE annals present no similar example.
She Is perhaps the only great actress VINO
| in the flush of strength and youth, IN the
! full glow of her ;triumphs, with the whole
world doing her homage, even preJudlced
England for the first time confessing and
substantially manifesting unrestralned
admiration for the genius and charm OF
an American actress-for London was
conquered and at her feet-she is the first
one while still in the full bloom of health
and youth to abandon these honors and
glories for the simpler charm OF home
life and to seek seclusion at an unpreten-
tious fireside
Mary Anderson's home life is perfectly
happy. Until she has published her own
memoirs the world will never know why
she deliberately renounced the fascina-
! tons Of the stage for the commonplace OF
matrimony and modest home, condl-
| tions that seem at once tedious and i'm
! possible to the average being while stand
| ing in the dazzling light of universally
| acknowledged fame. And those who
worship money will never cease to wonder
WHY this young woman was so inditfer-
| ent to the golden god as to give up call
ing that assured her at least $780, 900
every year. They will wonder why she
was willing to quit with half million or
less. when she might have had a million
1 and a. half and more. 1t was not an
| impulse, because at least year before her
retirement she declared her intention to
| that end. It was not religious Ianatlclsm,
for she never had any thought OF entering
a convent, and it was not wholly with a
| view to matrimony, for whether she had
! married Mr.. Navarro or not, 1t was her
| unalterable determination to leave the
| stage.
! So we shall leave it for Miss Anderson
| herself to tell, as she will do in her me-
moirs why she cared no longer to stand
| in her greatness before the public view.
She left it with the respect and affection
of the profession, whose admiration she
had compelled, her genius acknowledged
by the entire English speaking world.
| But it is of the happy home life Of this
sweet and great woman rather than with
her genius and her triumphs, that the
| writer would deal. We feel it duty to
give the world for a first time a truthful
| glimpse of this crowning happiness and
thereby controvert the brutal SANDERS OF
| the ambushed traducers who a couple Of
] years ago invaded the sanctity of her
1 home to print the most cruel and wanton
I fa1sehoods-f that deliberately
nerverted her happiness into misery, that
nictured one of the most gentle, gallant
\ and solicitous of husbands as a wretch, a
] narasite and a pauper, and which further,
Tin the very depravity Of mischievous ly-
j ing sought to make it appear that Mr.. De
/ Navarro had squandered his wife's estate
! and that they were living in poverty.
II is difficult to understand by what ig-
noble are of mendacity these slanders
i we're invented and in what spirit of base
4 ness they were uttered. Yet the fact re-
mains that they were contrived and utter
4 ed and that men believed Them and still
belieye them. But let us look at the
truthful and happy side of the picture:
r ~ yoSHy