WRETCHED DEATH OF AN ACTRESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7267, 30 November 1901, Page 4

WRETCHED DEATH OF AN ACTRESS.

LOUISE DAVENPORT'S END. Many theatre-goers dn New Zealand Avill re-member Miss Louise Davenport, whose * miserable death is referred to in the follow- [ ing extract from a recent number- of the Saa Francisco " Chronicle ": — On, a marble slab lin the morgue lay the body of Louise Davenport, once an actress of prominence. As the wife' and leading lady of W. E. Sheridan, a tragedian, of more than usual note, she won much popularity throughout the West. She was Lady Macbeth- to his Macbetfo, Portia 'to his Shylock, Parthenia to his Ingomar. For fifteen years this woman had been forgotten, but all that time she had lived and each year she sank lower and lower in the social scale. The other day her 'body was found in filth in a, wretched! aibode a-b 143, Minna Street. There was nothing to relieve the situation of its horror. The room was desolate, bare, hopeless, and, above all, filthy. It reeked with the dirt i of years. The bed' was of stow, and covered with lags ; the floor was 'bare, or would have 'been had it not been, for the coating of d'irt. On a table mear the window was a small , oil stove. This constituted t'he kitchen, and the cooking utensils consisted of two tin.' cans. On t'he mantel were candles stuck into the necks of whisky flasks, and with them lay gaudy 1 red dancing slippers, old photographs, bits of lace amd velvet, the flotsam aind jetsam of the stage. Louise Davenport's real name was Waters. She came of a family well ! known in Toronto. After she left school she decided that she must earn her own living. Perhaips tit was necessary, perhaps the craving for change and excitement, which was one of the dominant traits of her« character, which induced her ito become a waitress in. the railroad hotel. There her beauty attracted i'he attention <rl Robert I M'Wade, the actor. The girl ran away from home and joinedi M'Wade's company, playing Minna in " Rip Van Winkle." She remained 'with this company for several years. In 1881 the canupany in which the young woman was playing went to Mexico,, that being the first American theatrical company to go into that country. Thence they wen£ to Denver, and! there Miss Davenport was seeau by W. E. Sheridan, who was then dm the zenith of !his fame. The actor was greatly takeni by the young woman's beauty, and 1 induced her to join ihis company. At that time 'Mrs Sheridan was playing with her husband. It was notlong, however, before dhe had withdrawn from the company, and 1 her husband had foundi same means of divorcing her. He then married Miss Davenport, and «s the leading 3ady she made her first appearance in -this city at the old Baldwin Theatre in the early eighties. Her beauty attracted much attention. She was accounted a good actress, too. In company with her husband she travelled 1 all through the West until 1886, when wathj (him she went to Australia. There on May 18, 1887, Sheridan was seized 1 with an apopletic stroke aoid died. His wife was at that time playing dn Adelaide, and she reached his bedside two hours after his death. Sheridan died (miserably unhappy. His life had been made a horror by dissipation and drink. For soim-e years after Iher husband's death Mrs Sheridan played in Australia. In 1894 sine returned to this country, in order to find her sister, Etia Waters, who was 'known to be a morphine fiend. After. a long search she found/her in the gutter at Bakersfield, in this State, .and brought her to this city. Three years' later the sister died from the effects of morphine poisoning. Then fhe once-beautiful actress 'began to try 'to forget. Money was hard to find. She had a small pension allowed her by the Government, for hen husband had been an officer in the Northern Army during t'he Civil War. On this she lived'. All she seemed to want was oblivion, and this found in drink and morphine.