Amy Coleridge

Amy Coleridge (186*-1951) was a British actress

Biography

Born Amy Matilda Cowbrick (or Cowlrick), but used the stage name Amy Coleridge.

She married actor-director William Haviland married in Chicago on 18 February 1884. They had two children, a son (an actor, who died in South Africa in 1924) and a daughter (possibly the actress Augusta Haviland). She and Haviland were later divorced, possibly 1901.

She next married the actor Percy Anstey in 1906 (real name Percival Louis Page Phillips) and eventually she married Archibald Brough Pearce. Amy died in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on 4 August 1951.

Contribution to South African theatre, film, media and performance

Soon after their marriage, she and Haviland came to South Africa as members of the Holloway Theatre Company in 1895. She played Desdemona in Othello and Cordelia in King Lear at the Standard Theatre in Johannesburg.

In 1897 she returned with the Haviland and Lawrence Shakespearian & Dramatic Company to appear in their season of Shakespearian plays at the Port Elizabeth Opera House on January 3 & 4, 1898, directed by William Haviland and co-starring William Haviland and Gerald Lawrence.

In 1902 she appeared in three Broadway productions, but the apparently returned to South Africa to play for Leonard Rayne for many years and become a speech and drama teacher.

In 1910 she appeared for Rayne in a season of plays that included Henry of Navarre, The Woman in the Case, The Fires of Fate, The Sign of the Cross, East Lynne and The Silver King.