Maude Adams was an American actress. She achieved her greatest success as the character Peter Pan, first playing the role in the 1905 Broadway production of Peter Pan.
Background
Maude Adams was born on November 11, 1872 in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, the daughter of James Henry Kiskadden and Asenath Ann Adams Kiskadden. Her mother was a leading player in Brigham Young's Deseret Stock Company.
Before she was seven she had toured with her mother through the mining towns of the West Coast, and after her parents settled in San Francisco she began to appear regularly on stage. After her father died, Maude and her mother traveled east in a touring version of The Paymaster (1888), and in New York she played briefly in the stock companies of E. H. Sothern and Charles Hoyt.
Education
At the age of ten Adams was enrolled in the Collegiate Institute of Salt Lake City. She proved a good student, but after four years she persuaded her parents to let her return to the stage. It was the only formal education she ever had, although she read extensively throughout her life.
Career
"Little Maudie" made her debut at nine months in The Lost Child.
Before she was seven she had toured with her mother through the mining towns of the West Coast, and after her parents settled in San Francisco she began to appear regularly on stage. The child was precocious and assured. Carefully drilled by her mother, she became accustomed to the discipline of the theater, and despite her frail appearance she accepted the hardships of touring as a matter of course. Playing juvenile roles of both sexes, Little Maudie appeared in a succession of such standard melodramas as Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Octoroon. After her father died, Maude and her mother traveled east in a touring version of The Paymaster (1888), and in New York she played briefly in the stock companies of E. H. Sothern and Charles Hoyt.
Her career really began with her engagement by Charles Frohman. An imaginative and dedicated producer, he gave her minor roles in All the Comforts of Home (1890) and Men and Women (1890). The following year she had a more important part in Henry DeMille's Lost Paradise, a role that capitalized on her gift for pathos. Confident of her emerging talent, Frohman next cast her as the leading lady opposite his newly acquired star, John Drew. In their first play together, Clyde Fitch's Masked Ball (1892), she justified Frohman's decision. During the next four years she appeared opposite Drew in a succession of light comedies.
The turning point in her career came during a performance of Rosemary (1895), the last play in which she appeared with Drew. James Barrie, invited by Frohman to see a performance, was so taken by Maude Adams as the guileless young heroine that he decided to dramatize for her his successful novel The Little Minister. In 1897 she appeared in it at the Empire Theatre. It was the first of a series of successes, all written by Barrie, produced by Frohman, and starring Maude Adams: Quality Street (1901), Peter Pan (1905), What Every Woman Knows (1908), and The Legend of Leonora (1914).
Charles Frohman's production of Romeo and Juliet (1899), in which she played opposite William Faversham, exposed her limitations. Her fans acclaimed her portrayal as simple and charming, but her critics found her lacking in passion or depth. She was not up to the emotional demands of Shakespeare, and although well-suited physically to appear as his "breeches" heroines, she played Viola for only two performances (in 1908) and Rosalind only once (in 1910). She was more at ease in male dress in Rostand's L'Aiglon in 1900, but even in this most playgoers preferred the more fiery interpretation of Sarah Bernhardt.
Despite her reluctance to play mature roles and her narrow theatrical range, Maude Adams had an army of passionate admirers. To them she represented the spirit of youth and innocence.
Adams' last important engagement was in Barrie's Kiss for Cinderella (1916), in which she appeared both in New York and on tour. At its conclusion, in 1918, she went into virtual retirement, although she subsequently acted with Otis Skinner in The Merchant of Venice (1931). She performed on stage for the last time as Maria in Twelfth Night (1934).
She intermittently supervised a school of acting at Stephens College, Missouri, between 1937 and 1950.
She died at her farm in Tannersville, New York.
Religion
Religious by nature, and nominally Protestant, she spent some months in a convent near Tours and in later years deeded her estate in Ronkonkoma, New York, to a Catholic order.
Personality
Her piquant beauty, slight figure, and rippling laughter captivated audiences, and she played a tipsy scene in so attractive a fashion that even the staunchest prohibitionists capitulated to her charm. Her elfin charm, her pathos, and her elusive quality perfectly complemented Barrie's conceptions, but outside this narrow range of drama Adams was not altogether happy.
Her private life was untouched by scandal. Her insistence on privacy inevitably made her the most publicized actress in America.
Quotes from others about the person
David Belasco: "She had temperament. She could act and grasp the meaning of a part long before she could read. "