Adelaide Neilson
(1846-1880)

Neilson, [Lillian] Adelaide (née Elizabeth Ann Brown) (1848-1880) English actress born in Leeds. Her own life was as tragic as some of the heroines she played. She was the illegitimate daughter of an actress and spent her childhood and early life living in poverty and doing menial labor. She ran away to London under the name Lizzie Ann Bland and made a living as a Shakespeare reciting barmaid near the Haymarket. She made her stage debut in 1865 in Margate, England as Julia the The Hunchback (a role with which she was long associated), and in July of the same year she appeared as Juliet at the Royal Theatre, London. For the next several years she performed at several London and provincial theatres. Her quality was one of the combination of gleeful childhood vitality and womanly pathos. She was a highly regarded Juliet and Viola and her other outstanding roles included Rosalind, Rebecca (Ivanhoe), Beatrice, and Isabella (Measure for Measure). She was a great beauty and her voice was described as musical. She first performed in the United States in November 1872 as Juliet at Booth’s Theatre and afterwards toured the country. She returned to this country in 1875, 1877 and 1879, each time with much success. She married Philip Henry Lee in 1872, but was divorced in 1877. She died suddenly in Paris on August 15, 1880, at the age of 32.