McCarthy, Lillah (1875–1960)
McCarthy, Lillah (1875–1960)
British actress . Name variations: Lady Lillah Keeble. Born in 1875; died in 1960; married Harley Granville-Barker (a playwright, director, translator, and writer), in 1906 (divorced 1918); married Sir Frederick Keeble, in 1920.
Lillah McCarthy was born in 1875, and showed an early inclination to be an actress. She studied elocution and voice production with Hermann Vezin and secured her first theatrical role in 1896. McCarthy worked with Wilson Barrett until 1904, when she was discovered by playwright George Bernard Shaw. Moving to the Court Theater, for the next two years she starred in Shaw's plays. Most of these were directed by Harley Granville-Barker, a former actor who was also a playwright, daring director, producer and writer. They were married in 1906.
McCarthy appeared in the title role of Nan and as Lady Sybil in J.M. Barrie's What Every Woman Knows in 1908, as Margaret Knox in Fanny's First Play in 1911, and as Lavinia in Androcles and the Lion in 1913. She also worked with her husband in his revolutionary series of Shakespearean productions at the Savoy Theater from 1912 to 1914. McCarthy divorced Granville-Barker in 1918, and married Sir Frederick Keeble in 1920, after which she left the stage. She published an autobiography, Myself as Friends, in 1933. Lillah McCarthy died in 1960.
Grant Eldridge , freelance writer, Pontiac, Michigan