PASSING OF A GREAT ACTRESS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3140, 23 October 1922, Page 8

PASSING OF A GREAT ACTRESS.

The death of Miss Genevieve Ward, the famous actress, which occurred! a few weeks ago, was notably peaceful, and her mind was active to the- end. One who was with her at the tune declared' that she knew the appreachttTig hour, and' calmly ordered the final arrangements of her business mutters. "I am tailing fast," she said, half an hour before her death, "tell the doctor to come." She then asked for her knitting to he brought up to her, and was. actually using her needle a lew minutes before her death, and while awaiting the arrival of the doctor. Then she <K«cu«sed the dispatch of a cheque, and to Mrs Brown, her faithful companion, she said that she wished "Good-bye" to he sent to a number of people she named. Dame Genevieve Ward was a great and talented woman. Not only as a, great artist, but a,s a physical embodiment of virility and will-power. Genevieve Ward was a .strikinj.; personaTitv. To her had fallen experience* which might easily have crushed a less' combative nature. She fought them all. Tn the latter years of her career the splendid energy that had proved l her best equipment remained with her in almost unabated strength. She could ride and row and 1 swim, hut when on the threshold l of her 75th year she was called upon to speak at a public dinner, where the veterans of the stage were toasted, the vocal glories of Genevieve Ward seemed almost incredible. Her notes rang out dear and sonorous in deep, vibratory passages. Daughter of Colonel Samuel Ward, of New York, and horn some 30 years before the American Civil War, in which her father fought, Genevieve Ward was originally trained for opera, and made her first appearance in

"Stella di Napoli," in Italy, in 1855. She cuiickly rose to the position of prima donna, and was being looked to by musical America to become the supreme operatic "star" of the country when an attack of fever in Cuba: deprived her entirely of her singing voice, and left her with nothing (to (inote her own words to a Daily Chronicle representative, recently) but the "hoarse croak of a raven." The tragic loss, of her singing voice, might almost have, been the answering call to a sinister prophecy, for one or two of the musical critics in New York in the 'fifties, referring to her forcibly dramatic rendering of Lucrezia Borgia, in the opera of that name, declared that her voice had far more of the elocutionary to the musical quality, and that, "as one listened and beheld her performance, one felt that Macbeth was somewhere around waiting for his Lady." Then came the tragic illness; then some years of drudgery in New York as a teacher of singing ; then her debut as an actress in the part of Ladv Macbeth!

Many were the triumphs of Genevieve Ward on the draamtic stage, but none so remarkable as her performance of the wicked Marquise de Mohrivart, the terribly fierce adventuress in Herman Mori vale's and V. O. Grove's sensational romance, "Forget-Mo-Not." It often happens that the name and fame of an actress arc ind'issolubly associated with a particular part. This was the case with Genevieve Ward. Although thousands of people in many parts of the world admired her varied classical and Shakespearean roles, it was "Forget-Me-Not" that the chief memory of her will be liked.

In itself the piece made no particular appeal to English tastes. But the genius of the artist made Stephanie n very impressive personage. Adventures* and gambler, vindictive, unscrupulous, embittered, cruel, and merciless, she lifted the impersonation to great heights, going through the entire gamut of emotions and thrilling audiences by her intensity of feeling. "Forget-Mo-Not" became a world-wide favorite entirely through the strength and talent of Genevieve Ward.

Having at length* reached' tire pinnacle of success. Genevieve Ward never looked back. She delighted people, l in Australia. New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands, Japan. Canada, the United' States, and South Africa. In her infinite variety of parts from ISftf) till the close of her active life all the lat-ter-day actors and managers found her services invaluable. Al (he age of S.‘i. at the invitation of Miss lalian Bavlis, she opened' the Shakespeare Birthday Festival at the Old Vie hy appearing as Voluinnia in “Coriolanus.’’ “Hardened theatregoers’’ it was written, “compelled to tears hy her magnetic, force, rose from (heir seats in a body at (he end of the performance, and (his little woman, withwith her many triumphs behind her. was recalled again and again before the curtain. Miss Ward is frail and exacting, hut within the worn-out body there still burns tin* flame of genius. Of all Ihe performers in fbe play hers was the most beautiful voice, clear :rs a bell, it toned the great senten cos. while her delicate white hands emphasised the wonder of the spoken word.’’ .Inst a iwelvemo'iith afterwards, in. tin* same place and in celebration of (he same events .she renewed aeipiaintanee with the patrons of the Old Vie, thrilling them with her amazing vitality and moving them to an electrical outburst of applause hy her splendid delivery, as Margaret of Anion in “Richard Hl.’’ of the poet’s lines. The crowning event of her long life, came .it may he added, in March, 1921. with the announcement that the King had been pleased to approve of the appointment, of Miss Genevieve Ward to lx) a Dame Commander of the Order oi the British Empire.