Viola Tree was an English actress, singer, playwright and author
Background
Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty"s Theatre. Tree was born in London, the eldest of three daughters of Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his wife, the actress Helen Maud Tree, née Holt. She also had seven illegitimate half-siblings, the products of her father"s many infidelities, among them the director Carol Reed and Peter Reed, whose son became the actor Oliver Reed.
Education
She was educated privately in London and in Europe.
Career
Later she appeared in opera, variety, straight theatre and film. Her sisters were Felicity Tree and Iris Tree. Stage and film career Originally, Tree planned a career as a singer, but entered the family profession in 1904.
She made a very successful London debut in March 1904 as Viola in Twelfth Night.
Foreign the next four years she appeared in her father"s productions at His Majesty"s Theatre. Her other Shakespeare roles included Hero in Much Ado about Nothing, the Queen in Richard II, Ariel in The Tempest, Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Ophelia in Hamlet and Perdita in The Winter"s Tale, in which Ellen Terry played Hermione.
Tree continued to plan an operatic career, and after making a success in the title role of Iphigénie en Tauride and as Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice at the Savoy Theatre in 1910, she went to Milan to study. On her return, however, she did not pursue her operatic ambitions, except for playing Euridice again in 1912.
Instead, she continued to build her stage career in plays and in variety.
In 1912, Tree married a drama critic, Alan Parsons, who died in 1933, aged 44. In 1919, Tree took over the management of the Aldwych Theatre, scoring particular success with the works of Sacha Guitry. Her last Shakespeare role was Helena in A Midsummer Night"s Dream in 1923.
In 1930-1931 she was in the United States, appearing on Broadway and on tour in drama and also appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies.
Through the 1930s, Tree continually played in light comedies in the West End, varied with occasional unorthodox undertakings. In 1930 she directed an Italian play, Louisiana Piccola by Massimo Bontempelli, in the original Italian, and in 1934 she directed Jean-Philippe Rameau"s opera Castor et Pollux for the Oxford University Opera Club.
Her last West End appearance was in The Melody that Got Lost, "a comedy with music", in January 1938. She was an early and strong supporter of the foundation of a National Theatre.
Politics
She wrote a second play, The Swallow, about decent people coping with the rise of Italian Fascism, produced in London in 1925.