Edith Cartwright

(b. **/**/1881 – d. **/**/****). British actress. Though she originally acted under the name of Edith Morley, which was her father’s family name, Edith Cartwright was the daughter of Victorian actor Charles Cartwright (1855-1915) and accompanied her father on a number of theatrical tours, including extensive ones to Australia and New Zealand, first in 1898, when she made her theatrical debut, and again in 1914. On the earlier tour she played Esmeralda to his Quasimodo in an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In 1905 she made her first visit to North America as a member of the Ellis Jeffrey Company and she returned there in 1909. She was highly regarded and in 1899 one critic wrote: “Miss Morley is an attractive brunette, and divinely tall. Her features suggest intellectual power, and throughout she displays a high intelligence and a faculty of expression which should stand her in good stead”. In South Africa she acted in the film version of H. De Vere Stacpoole’s The Vulture’s Prey (Dick Cruikshanks & William Bowden/1922) in the role of Margaret Harker (alias Sonia Perovski). In 1922 an Edith Morley appeared in a film entitled No. 7 Brick Row, directed by Fred W. Durrant, and this might have been her as well. (FO)

Sources

The Era, London, 1 July 1899

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