Women Like That
| Women Like That Born a Tomboy |
by Francesca Susanna
“I was born a tomboy,” Charlotte Cushman, one of the most famous actresses of the Victorian Era, said of herself. Charlotte was a tomboy to such an extent that it was virtually impossible for her biographers to gloss over the fact that she was a lesbian, as happens in many biographies of such women. She never married and was never romantically involved with a man.
Charlotte was born in 1816 and lived in a period of history where women were allowed almost no freedom and had just about every profession closed to them. She was not in the least pretty but nonetheless rose to become one of the best-loved actresses in England and America for 40 years.
She was the eldest of four children, and her father left the family. While her mother began to take in boarders to keep them afloat, Charlotte left school to train as a singer. Although her mother strongly disapproved of Charlotte’s career as a stage actress, she did consider singing for a church or in recitals a respectable job.
Right from the beginning Charlotte played male roles – known as “breeches parts” – as well as strong-willed women such as Lady Macbeth and Queen Katherine (Henry VIII’s first wife); she never played the ingénue or female romantic interest. She became well known for playing Romeo, a role she first played at the age of twenty and reprised again and again throughout her career, often playing the Romeo to her Juliets off stage besides.
It was not unheard of for actresses of this era to take on breeches parts despite the rigid gender roles to which men and women were expected to adhere in regular society. It could be argued that the reason for this was that the men in the audience found the novelty of seeing an actress’s legs in male attire titillating, but Charlotte won the hearts of her entire audience.
Charlotte’s first successes were with a company in Albany. The next season she joined the Park Theater in New York, but when the manager at the theater there refused to raise her salary to $25 a week, she packed up her mother, brother, sister and nephew and went to the National Theater in Philadelphia where she was the leading stock lady. Next, it was back to the Park in New York where the manager offered her $50 a week for the 1841-42 season. She opened there as Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then it was back to Philadelphia in August of 1842 where the 26-year-old Charlotte was offered the position of manager at the Walnut Street Theater, a highly unusual position for a woman.
Charlotte inspired in one young woman, Annie Brewster, an intense “love of the spirit” as Annie wrote in her diary. For a while the nature of this friendship was veiled in the accepted ideal of Victorian female friendship. But eventually Annie’s brother, Benjamin – who was the head of the Brewster household – considered the relationship ‘wicked’ and forbade Annie any more contact with Charlotte. “I shall never love another as I loved her,” Annie wrote.
Charlotte also hotly pursued the famous English actress Fanny Kemble. She had given up the stage to make a miserable marriage with a Southern slave owner, although slavery as an institution utterly repelled her. Charlotte showered Fanny with flowers, visits and gifts. At first Fanny responded warmly and took much comfort in the friendship, but she soon got tired of Charlotte’s over-zealous attention.
Fanny did encourage Charlotte to have her portrait painted by a relative of her husband’s, Thomas Sully, and in the course of sitting for him Charlotte got to know his daughter Rosalie, an artist in her own right.
In her diary Charlotte kept a detailed account of her life; the roles she played, where her money went, the letters she wrote and received as well as the times she “slept with Rose.” She noted in her diary, “ ‘R.’ Saturday July 6th ‘married.’ ” In 1844 Charlotte sailed to England. She captivated her English audiences as thoroughly as she had the American, and did not return to America until 1849, two years after Rosalie died at the age of twenty-five.
Photographs of Charlotte Cushman show an imposing, large boned, square-face, ugly woman, yet everywhere she went audiences filled the seats and cheered for her, and women fell in love with her. She had a powerful intellect and must have had a charismatic presence. She had several ‘female marriages’ as her friend Elisabeth Barrett Browning put it, as well as lovers on the side.
Emma Stebbins was the longest-enduring companion. She was a sculptor best known for Angel of the Waters, the fountain at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. They were both vibrant women in their 40s when they met in Rome. Charlotte had gone to Italy with her partner at the time, Matilda Hays (who had played Juliet to Charlotte’s Romeo) and some other female friends, all artists or writers, a group of “jolly female bachelors.”
Emma Stebbins’ family strongly disapproved of her relationship with Charlotte and Charlotte’s mother never liked Charlotte’s friends. And Charlotte herself was careful to remain in the closet, so to speak, as far as the public was concerned.
Charlotte Cushman died in February of 1876 of breast cancer, still a much loved celebrity. Emma Stebbins took on the task of organizing her papers into a memoir of the famous actress. Interestingly enough, neither Matilda nor Rosalie is mentioned in the memoir.
Earlier this spring, Theater for the New City in New York City produced a play based on Charlotte’s life, The Lady was a Gentleman by Barbara Kahn. Certainly so forceful a personality as Charlotte Cushman could not remain off the stage forever!
Further Reading:
Bright Particular Star, by Joseph Leach, Yale University Press, 1970.
When Romeo was a Woman, by Lisa Merrill, The University of Michigan Press, 1999.
Charlotte Cushman; Her Letters and Memories of her Life by Emma Stebbins, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878.
Francesca Susannah is a writer interested in lesbians through history. She lives in Burlington.