Olga Nethersole

Olga Isabella Nethersole, CBE, RRC (18 January 1866[1] – 9 January 1951) was an English actress, theatre producer, and wartime nurse and health educator.

Olga Nethersole
Born
Olga Isabella Nethersole

(1866-01-18)18 January 1866
London, England
Died9 January 1951(1951-01-09) (aged 84)
Bournemouth, England
Occupation(s)Actress, producer, nurse, educator
Years active1887-1951

Career

Olga Isabella Nethersole was born in London, of Spanish descent on her mother's side. Her step-father was Henry Nethersole, a solicitor. She made her stage début at Theatre Royal, Brighton in 1887.[2] In 1888, Nethersole began playing important parts in London, at first under Rutland Barrington and John Hare at the Garrick Theatre.[3]

Poster for the Clyde Fitch play, Sapho

Nethersole toured Australia and the United States playing leading parts in modern plays, notably Clyde Fitch's Sapho, where she and her male costar Hamilton Revelle were arrested for "violating public decency" for which she was later acquitted.[4][5] Her powerful emotional acting, however, made a great effect in some other plays, such as Carmen, in which she again appeared in America in 1906.[3][6]

In 1904, Nethersole portrayed the lead role in La seconde madame Tanqueray at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris.[7] Then she was at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in Magda, Sapho, Adrienne Lecouvreur, and an adaptation of a French play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé, Camille, an adaptation of a French play La Dame aux Camélias,[8] and The Spanish Gipsy, an adaptation of the French play Carmen de Mérimée in 1907.[9] Every summer, Nethersole spent a week at the house of playwright Edmond Rostand in Cambo les Bains. In 1907, she performed Rostand’s play La Samaritaine an English version of it to play it in London.[10] In a conference at the Théâtre de l'Athénée on 17 November 1908, Robert Eude said that Olga Nethersole invented the soul kiss (an especially long kiss, of which actress Maude Adams was the recordwoman).[11]

Nethersole inspired the character of "Miss Nethersoll", an American dancer, in the French novel La Danseuse nue et la Dame a la licorne by Rachel Gaston-Charles (1908).[12]

World War I and later years

During World War I, Nethersole served as a nurse in London and later established the People's League of Health, for which she received the Royal Red Cross (RRC) in 1920.[5] She combined her theatre work with health work for the rest of her life. She was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1936.

Death

On 9 January 1951, Nethersole died in Bournemouth, England at the age of 84.[5][13] Her brother, Louis F. Nethersole, was a theatrical manager, producer and press agent and one-time husband of the American actress and singer, Sadie Martinot.[14]

Selected stage roles
  • Mary Magdalene, 5 December 1910 - December 1910
  • The Writing on the Wall, 26 April 1909 - May 1909
  • The Enigma, 8 February 1908 - 1 March 1908
  • I Pagliacci, 8 February 1908 - 1 March 1908
  • Sapho, 1908

Legacy

Between 1885 and 1890, Olga Nethersole’s portrait was painted in Omaha, Nebraska by artist Herbert A. Collins.[15]

References
  1. Her birth was registered in Kensington in the first quarter of 1866 as Olga Isabella Enderby.
  2. "NETHERSOLE, Olga". Who's Who. 59: 1293. 1907.
  3. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nethersole, Olga". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 421.
  4. "The Sapho Affair". American Experience. Retrieved 19 March 2011. During one performance, Olga Nethersole was placed under arrest for "violating public decency." Her trial transfixed the city for weeks.
  5. "OLGA NETHERSOLE DIES AT AGE OF 80 (sic) ..." The New York Times. 11 January 1951. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  6. "Olga Nethersole". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  7. Le Ménestrel Review 1904
  8. Annales du théatre et de la musique de 1907 (p. 274)
  9. L'Aurore du 12 June 1907
  10. Newspaper l'Aurore, 12 June 1907
  11. Newspaper Comoedia, 18 November 1908 p. 2
  12. Review Le Mercure de France, 16 September 1908 p. 306
  13. "Olga Nethersole Dies in England". Associated Press. 11 January 1951. Retrieved 19 March 2011.
  14. Sadie Martinot Dies Insane at 61. The New York Times, 8 May 1923, p. 7.
  15. Biography of Herbert Alexander Collins, by Alfred W. Collins, February 1975, 4 pages typed, in the possession of Collins' great-great grand-daughter, D. Dahl of Tacoma, Washington
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