Isabel Althea Hussa Pearse (1912–1999) was an American actress who starred in theatre. She performed with the Montgomery Players at the

Montgomery Playhouse The Montgomery Playhouse is Maryland's second oldest continually-running community theatrical performance group. Formed in 1989 from a merger between through a joint effort of the Board of Directors of both The Kensington/Garret Players and The ...

Montgomery County, Maryland Montgomery County is the most populous county in the state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 1,062,061, increasing by 9.3% from 2010. The county seat and largest municipality is Rockville, although the census-design ...

. Pearse also performed at the Players Playhouse in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. She was a descendant of reformer Jan Hus.

Early life and education

Pearse was born in Montclair, New Jersey to Theodore Hussa and Cora Warbutton Hussa on Oct. 26, 1912. Her father, Theodore Hussa, worked as a textile engineer and inventor. Pearse graduated from the Beard School (now Morristown-Beard School) in Orange, New Jersey in 1930. Pearse then studied acting under noted Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya.

Acting career and war service

Pearse acted for 40 years in roles in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Detroit, Michigan, and Maryland. In 1944, she performed the role of Ruth in the play ''

Blithe Spirit Blithe Spirit may refer to: * ''Blithe Spirit'' (play), a 1941 comic play written by Noël Coward * ''Blithe Spirit'' (1945 film), a British comedy film based on the play * ''Blithe Spirit'' (2020 film), a British-American comedy film based on th ...

'' with the Montgomery Players. The performance earned her the Washington Critics Award for best actress. In 1957, Pearse performed in Edward Mabley's comedy ''Glad Tidings'' at the Players Clubhouse in Detroit. (The original version of the play ran on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in 1951.) She played the role of Maud Abbott. The book ''Detroit on Stage'' describes news coverage from the time that characterized her performance as "provocative, maddening, witty, and always decorative." During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Pearse drove an ambulance for the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...

Family

In 1940, Pearse married Bearnard Paul Pearse. Bearnard Pearse, a graduate of the

Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, served in the U.S. Navy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearse, Isabel American stage actresses Actors from Montclair, New Jersey People from Grosse Pointe, Michigan 1912 births 1999 deaths Morristown-Beard School alumni 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American people