Portsmouth's Leading Lady

Country Living Magazine | March 2000

The cloth is fragile but brilliant with brocade, silk, fine satin and be­decked with jewels — remnants of the 1800s, a time when paddlewheelers steamed their way to the muddy shores of Portsmouth, Ohio, bringing settlers to their new homesteads and the pas­sage to the Northwest Territory.

The year was 1865. The Civil War still raged between the states. On Aug. 17 in Caldbeck, Cumberlandshire, England, a young girl was christened Sarah Frances Frost after her mother, but was known as Fanny. Her father, John Frost, was a "ne'er-do-well" and a heavy drinker who accidentally had plucked out the eye of a horse racing opponent with the crack of his whip.

Fearing prosecution, Frost fled to the distant shores of America. Once there, he changed his name, like so many others had, to a chosen name of Brough. He purchased land in the trou­bled Indian territory of Kansas and sent for his family to follow, giving hope of a fresh start.

Life in a new world

Fanny's mother was a determined woman who was hard-working and the support of the family of four children. She sold all her property and livestock, sewed the bank notes in her clothing and set sail, taking tea, bread, bacon and eggs to see them through their journey on the ship, named Java. It was a long, dangerous voyage. Their cabin was flooded from storms and their seasickness seemed unbearable.

They made landfall in New York, then journeyed to Kansas, where the weather was severe on the prairies and Indians were a life-threatening fact. But John Frost (Brough) had a travel­ing fever within him and soon left his family for the adventures of Australia.

When the following spring arrived, Fanny's mother abandoned Kansas and chose the muddy shores of Portsmouth. They made tneir nome at <+zj num. 01., where the broad Ohio River lapped the distant edge of the exposed banks.

A three-story brick building that viewed the city's busy waterfront still stands today where the noise of steam­boat whistles and cargo freight and passengers traveling up and down the powerful Ohio River echoed the life in the mid-1800s.

Mrs. Brough operated a boarding house and saloon there at 425 Front St., where Fanny grew up. Mrs. Brough was a determined woman who con­stantly worked to provide means for her children.

The theater beckons

At an early age, Fanny persuaded her mother to purchase a book of Shakespeare, which she studied labori­ously to attain the phrasing and mean­ing of each character. By age 11, she knew by heart all the character parts of six complete plays. This drew attention to her when she tried out for a traveling troupe called the "Children's Pinafore Troupe." She landed a part at age 14 in this traveling group and earned a total of $7 a week.

Fanny's mother wasn't sympathetic and thought the theater was evil. But the troupe did well with several chil­dren and some adult midgets. Fanny's eloquent acting and singing voice ad­vanced her to leading roles. When the tour closed, Fanny returned home, now in Cincinnati, where her mother di­vorced their delinquent father and mar­ried a German baker named Hess.

Fanny's new stepfather had strong ideas that each child should learn a trade and insisted they drop out of school. Fanny began work in a ginger-snap cracker factory, where the strong ginger odor sickened her to the point that she was let go. From there she studied to be an operator for the tele­graph (then a primary means of com­munication), at which she failed miserably.

Fanny then tried her hand as a seamstress, which sparked her cre­ativity and led her to tai­loring costumes for the stage, her ultimate love. She began getting under­study parts and was taken in by a Miss Ada Dow, a director who took her to New York. At the age of 18, she looked in a mirror and declared, "From now on, I am Julia Marlowe."

It was a true stage name — Julia from her favorite Shakespearean character, Juliet, and Marlowe, for the incomparable bard, Christopher Marlowe.

Fame and fortune

Julia Marlowe's life was a series of trains, cities and stages. Flowers filled the stage at the Star Theater in New York, where her character, Juliet, established her as "First Lady of the American Stage."    She gained popu­larity and was the top actress of the early 1900s.

With a six-year contract in major cities across the na­tion, she soon be­came a world-famous actress. She gathered personal admirers like Susan B. Anthony, a suffra­gette who attended and visited her backstage. Sarah Bernhardt, the French actress, admired her upon attending her long-running plays. In a tele­gram to an acquaintance, Ms. Bernhardt stated, "I am con­vinced that Julia Marlowe will be a star of the first magnitude."
Bernhardt's prediction came true. Marlowe was a dominant force on the stage. She be­came a heavily endorsed name for shoes and ciga­rettes and her image was found in magazines and even on playing cards. She married Edward Hugh Sothern, whom she met on stage as he played Romeo to her character, Juliet.

Her career con­tinued as she be­came a director as well as an actress. Her husband was generous and do­nated proceeds from his stage plays to build the pedestal for the New York Statue of Liberty.

During World War 1, both actors entertained the troops and sold war bonds. Julia's voice had a mesmerizing quality. Once she re­cited the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the crowd wept at the drama of her oration. She then was dubbed by the press as "The Lady with the Golden Voice." The two had attained status and wealth that allowed them to acquire an estate of 400 acres in the Catskills. Julia was a voracious reader with a personal library of more than 4,000 books. She was highly active until her husband died in 1933 and she retired from the stage.

In the cold of December 1938, a frail, white-haired woman of 78, wear­ing a black velvet cloche, presented 17 trunks to the Muse­um of the City of New York. They were filled with photographs, scripts and jeweled daggers. These were the remnants of her life, relics of the mid-1800s, collected throughout a theatri­cal career that had been unmatched for her time.

This was Mar­lowe's last public appearance. She went into seclusion and died six years later, after a long ill­ness, at the Plaza Hotel in New York's Central Plaza, in 1950 at the age of 85.

Bringing back the memories

Her childhood home on 425 Front St. remains today, its view now blocked by a 20-foot flood wall. It is privately owned and has survived a series of major floods and the ravages of fire. The building seemed hopeless, a piece of lost history. But thanks to Tom and Joann Russell, now owners of this Front Street property, it is being saved and renovated, strictly by their own finances.

"It's been a nickel-and-dime proc­ess in restoring this building," Joann states. They have been particularly careful to retain the historic building, even to the point of saving all the bricks that are removed from the build­ing whenever necessary.

The Bonneyfiddle area, as it is known, had deteriorated since the flood wall was erected, but thanks to the peo­ple of the city of Portsmouth and the artistic brush of Robert Dafford of Louisiana, a timeline of art has cap­tured Portsmouth on a once-drab wall and has begun the creation of an artful revival. An astounding massive mural displays Julia Marlowe and what once was her home, located across the street.