Lillah McCarthy

Lillah Emma McCarthy, Lady Keeble CBE (22 September 1875 – 15 April 1960) was an English actress and theatrical manager.

Biography

Lila Emma McCarty was born in Cheltenham on 22 September 1875, the seventh of eight children of Jonadab McCarthy and Emma (''née'' Price). Jonadab McCarthy (1841–1913) was a furniture maker and antique dealer, buyer and seller of property, amateur astronomer (FRAS) and lover of poetry. After unhappy episodes at school, Lilla was taught at home by her father. Her lifelong love of the theatre was triggered in 1891 by seeing Lillie Langtry play the title role in Tom Taylor's ''Lady Clancarty'' at Cheltenham's New Theatre and Opera House (now the Everyman).

By 1895 Jonadab had acquired a property in Chepstow Place, Bayswater, enabling Lila to continue her studies in London. She went to Hermann Vezin's School of Acting to learn elocution; in his later years Vezin gave lessons to aspiring actors, including Herbert Beerbohm Tree. McCarthy's first role was as Lady Macbeth in an amateur production in May 1895. She was directed by William Poel, the theatre manager and Elizabethan specialist, at the Shakespeare Reading Society at St. George's Hall, Langham Place. George Bernard Shaw was in the audience and noted that "her Lady Macbeth was a highly promising performance, and that some years of hard work would make her a valuable recruit to the London stage". He advised McCarthy "to go into the provinces for ten years and learn how to act". She took him at his word, and a decade elapsed before she approached him again. It was at this time she started to call herself Lillah.

Later in 1895 she toured with Ben Greet, the Shakespearian actor and impresario, in a wide variety of parts. The following January McCarthy received an offer from Wilson Barrett to join his company for the part of Berenis, in the London production of his play ''The Sign of the Cross'', at the Lyric Theatre. In November 1896 she sailed on the Britannic ''en route'' to New York for her first overseas tour which was with Ben Greet's elder brother, William. Her first appearance was at the Knickerbocker Theatre soon after arriving, playing Mercia in the ''Sign of the Cross''.

McCarthy returned to England in March 1897 and went on tour In Britain. She then joined Wilson Barrett once again for his tour to Australia. They left England in October 1897, returning in August 1898. In Melbourne she appeared as Serena in ''Claudian''; as Auntie Nan in ''The Manxman''; as Gertrude in ''Hamlet''; and as Servia in ''Virginius'', alongside her brother Daniel and with Barrett in the lead role in all four. The tour progressed to Sydney for three months, followed by Adelaide in June where McCarthy also played Emilia in ''Othello'', and finally to Perth by July 1898.

The tour next took them to New Zealand and then South Africa – they arrived in Cape Town in June 1902, a few days after the South African War had ended. McCarthy wrote in her memoir that “British soldiers were eager to adore us – any or all of us ��In Capetown a major sat upon my balcony and said, now that he was free from duty, he would take me to settle upon a chicken-farm in Ireland.”

Back in England, a new chapter in Lillah's career opened in 1905. In her memoir she recalls

She wrote to Shaw, who asked her to visit him in Adelphi Terrace. "He looked at me, gave me a broad smile, and said 'Why, here's Ann Whitefield'." McCarthy played this role in ''Man and Superman'' at the Court Theatre, Sloane Square in May 1905, followed by Nora in Shaw's ''John Bull's Other Island'' in September. In 1906, McCarthy appeared again in ''Man and Superman'', this time opposite Harley Granville Barker. They married in the play and then in real life – at the register office, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden on 24 April 1906. The couple, who had known each other for ten years or more, honeymooned in Paris, Germany and the Tyrol.

The period 1907–1913 was a successful one for McCarthy. Her appearances included Shaw's ''Don Juan in Hell''; Alfred Sutro's ''The Barrier'': a revival of ''Arms and the Man''; and, importantly, Euripides' ''Bacchae''. In 1910, while staying with H G Wells