Born: 3 March 1847, United Kingdom
Died: 15 August 1880
Country most active: International
Also known as: Elizabeth Ann Brown, Lilian Adelaide Neilson, Lizzie Ann Bland, Elizabeth Ann Lee
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Adelaide Neilson (1847-1880), an English actress, child of a strolling player, named Browne. As a girl she worked in a factory, and when fifteen years old made her way to London. Here she obtained employment, because of her beauty, as a member of the ballet at one of the theatres. After having received some instruction from the veteran actor, John Ryder, she played for a number of years in various stock and traveling companies, and gained her first conspicuous success as Amy Robsart, in a play based on Scott’s “Kenilworth.” In November, 1872, she came to America, and appeared as Juliet at Booth’s Theatre, New York, where her beauty and genius met with enthusiastic welcome. Her subsequent American tours were made in 1874, 1876 and 1879, and they were prosperous, so that she not only achieved distinction on our stage, but accumulated a considerable fortune. Her career was cut short by her sudden death at Paris in August, 1880.
William Winter in “Other Days” says: “The acting of Adelaide Neilson, was exceptionally remarkable for the attribute of inspiration. At moments her voice, countenance, and demeanor would undergo such changes, because of the surge of feeling, that her person became transfigured, and she was more like a spirit than a woman.
“She possessed a poetic soul and that is why her radiant presence in the balcony scene of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ diffused a golden light of romance, and why her action in the potion scene was thrilling and pathetic, with a fire of imagination, a truth and depth of feeling, that could not be resisted and cannot be forgotten.”