More Information on Maude Adams
Maude Adams (1872-1953) was a very popular stage actress in the early
twentieth century. She possessed an elfin quality that suited the plays
of James M. Barrie, particularly Peter Pan, a play in which she played the title role and for which she is most noted.
Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden was born 1 November 1872 in Salt Lake City.
Her mother, Annie Adams, was a leading lady in the stock company that played in the local Social Hall. Her father, James Kiskadden, worked for a bank and also in the Alta mines. At the age of nine months Maude made her first theatrical appearance. Despite her father's objections, she soon joined her mother on stage using the name Maude Adams. She and her mother traveled throughout the West with a theatrical barnstorming troupe, playing in rough mining towns as well as in larger cities like San Francisco. It was a difficult way for a young girl to grow up. In a short piece, "The One I Knew Least," Adams later wrote about how hard it was for her to form her
own personality when she was given so many roles. She did return to
Salt Lake for a little while to live with her grandmother and attend the
Salt Lake Collegiate Institute.
Adams debuted in New York at age ten in Esmeralda and then returned to California. At age sixteen she joined E.H. Sothern's theatre company in Boston and traveled with them to California and back to New York. She later switched to Charles H. Hoyt's stock company and then to Charles Frohman's in 1889. She began to play ingenue rather than children's roles while with Frohman's company. Following that, she spent five years as the leading lady in John Drew's company, where her work was praised for its charm, delicacy, and simplicity.
Adams's greatest triumphs came in performing the works of James M. Barrie. She acted as Lady Babbie in The Little Minister 300 times in New York and 65 times in Boston. She also played in Quality Street (1902) and in What Every Woman Knows (1908). She first played Peter Pan, the role with which she is most closely identified, in 1906.
Adams made her final appearance on the New York stage in A Kiss For Cinderella in 1916. After thirteen years in retirement, she appeared as Portia in Merchant of Venice in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1931 and as Maria in Twelfth Night in 1934 in Maine. From 1937 to 1943 she headed the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri. She died 17 July 1953 in Tannersville, New York.
From another source:
Maude Adams got her start in Pipers when she was around 5 years old. She went on to play the first Peter Pan, the musical scheduled this next spring by the Virginia City Theater Muckers drama group. The true subject of the famous movie and novel, "Somewhere in Time," Maude Adams became a world famous actress, then retired to teach at a woman's college in the southeast.
From another source:
Actress, born Maude Kiskadden, daughter of Salt Lake City star Annie Adams. At five Maude was starring as Little Schneider in Fritz, Our German Cousin in San Francisco. Her adult career began at 16 with a New York debut at the Star Theatre in The Paymaster. In 1890 she began an association with producer Charles Frohman that lasted until 1915. A box-office favorite until 1932 (despite an early retirement during 1918-1931), she emerged in 1897 as a star, capitalizing on her eternal youthfulness and whimsy, as Lady Babbie in The Little Minister, a character rewritten for her by James Barrie. She also starred in U.S. productions of his Quality Street (1901), Peter Pan (1905), What Every Woman Knows (1908), The Legend of Leonora (1914), and A Kiss for Cinderella (1916). Other parts included Rostand's L'Aiglon, the strutting hero in his Chantecler, and Shakespeare's Viola, Juliet, and Rosalind. In the 1920's she was a lighting consultant for General Electric. In 1931 she toured with Otis Skinner in The Merchant of Venice. During 1937-1950 she taught theater at Stephens College, Missouri.
Oakland Tribune,March 3, 1914
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