Jerrold, Mary

1877

1955

The actress Mary Jerrold was born in London on 4 December 1877, the daughter Philip F. Allen; she was the great-granddaughter of the playwright and journalist Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857). She attended the Gower Street School and began her long stage career at the St James’s Theatre, London, on 14 April 1896 as Prudence Dering in “Mary Pennington, Spinster”. That success brought other roles at that theatre, and she engaged with the Kendals for three and a half years, 1902-1905. During her next 45 years on the stage Jerrold acted dozens of roles in popular West End plays, including Rose Sibley in “Milestones”, the role in which she is pictured by Cushla Parker (331), Peggy Ingledew in “Under the Greenwood Tree”, Marion Yates in “The Madras House”, Sarah in “Trelawny of the Wells”, Lady Beaconsfield in “Disraeli” and Mrs Frail in “Love for Love”. She toured Australia in 1926-1927 with Dion Boucicault and acted in New York in 1928. At the age of 65, in 1942, she began a three-and-a half-year run as Mrs Brewster in “Arsenic and Old Lace” at the Strand. Some of her last roles were at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in 1950: Lady Wrathie in “Shall We Join the Ladies?”, Cuthman’s Mother in “The Boy With a Cart” and Lady Amorest in “The Old Ladies”. She began making films in 1931. She was married to Hubert Harben. Mary Jerrold died in 1955. (WWT)