Singer, actress, and entertainer, born in Clinton, Iowa, USA. She made her stage debut in HMS Pinafore (1879) and appeared regularly in Broadway variety theatre, gaining her first starring role in Grand Mogul (1881). As famous for her flamboyant personal life as for her beauty and voice, she toured England and the USA (18991904) with a burlesque company, and became known as the American Beauty.
Lillian Russell (December 4, 1860 – June 6, 1922) was an American actress and singer.
Born Helen Louise Leonard in Clinton, Iowa, Lillian Russell became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.
Life and career
Russell's father was newspaper publisher Charles E.
Early career
At the age of 18, she and her mother left for New York where Leonard studied singing under Leopold Damrosch.
In 1879, having changed her name to "Lillian Russell," she made her first appearance on Broadway at Tony Pastor's Theatre. Russell immediately gained popularity, and she toured with Pastor and later starred in some of his comic operas. In the early 1880's Russell starred in the Bijou Opera House, on Broadway, and elsewhere in Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera roles, such as the title role in Patience, Aline in The Sorcerer.
Russell married her second husband, composer Edward Solomon, in 1884 (a year after their daughter was born) and travelled with him to England. Russell filed for divorce in 1893 and joined the J. When Alexander Graham Bell introduced long distance telephone service on May 8, 1890, Russell's voice was the first carried over the line. From New York City, Russell sang "Sabre Song" to audiences in Boston and Washington. Russell continued starring with various opera companies, including the McCaull Opera Company and later her own company. For many years, Russell was the foremost singer of operettas in America. Among Russell's best-known roles were in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience and The Sorcerer and Gilbert's The Mountebanks, Alfred Cellier's Dorothy as well as Jacques Offenbach's The Princess of Trebizonde, The Brigands, and The Grand Duchess, in The Queen of Brilliants.
For forty years, Russell was also the companion of businessman "Diamond Jim" Brady, who showered her with extravagant gifts of diamonds and gemstones and supported her extravagant lifestyle.
Later years
In 1899, Russell joined the Weber and Fields's Music Hall, where she starred in their entertainments until 1904. Composer John Stromberg had written several hit songs for Russell. The touching ballad became the signature song of Russell's later years and is the only one that she is known to have recorded.
After 1904, Russell began to have vocal difficulties, but she did not retire from the stage.
In later years, Russell wrote a newspaper column, advocated women's sufferage, and was a popular lecturer, advocating an optimistic philosophy of self-help. Russell became a wealthy woman, and during the Actors' Equity strike of 1919, she made a major donation of money to sponsor the formation of the Chorus Equity Association by the chorus girls at the Ziegfeld Follies.
Lillian Russell died on June 6, 1922, shortly after a completing a fact-finding mission to Europe on behalf of President Warren Harding.
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