Inez Bensusan
Inez Bensusan (1871–1967) was an actress, playwright and suffragette
Contents
Biography
Born in Sydney, Australia, of a Jewish family, later studying at University of Sydney before she and her family moved to England in 1894. There she joined an theatre company and went on to perform in plays around the world (e.g. England, South Africa, the USA and Australia), and appear in more than fifty plays in the West End between 1906 until 1938.
She also established a Women's Theatre Company at the Coronet Theatre in 1913. The company would go on to entertain the troops during the ensuing war.
Besides her theatrical work, she soon became involved in the feminist movement, inter alia as a member of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union and one of the founder members of the Actresses' Franchise League and the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage.
She wrote a number of plays for the Actresses' Franchise League, including The Apple (1909), Perfect Ladies (1909), Nobody's Sweetheart (1911), The Prodigal Passes (1914), The Singer of the Veldt and True Womanhood (a film, 1911).
Film work included roles in The Grit of a Jew (1917) and Adam Bede (1918).
She died in 1967.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
She visited South Africa in 1896 with the Searelle Comedy Company on a tour the major South African cities, for example playing "Lavender" in their production of Sweet Lavender (Pinero).
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inez_Bensusan
D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p. 404
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