Annie Lewis

Annie Lewis (c. 1869 – 1896) was an American soubrette of light operas and musical comedies who died from tuberculosis in her twenties.

Annie Lewis
The Marie Burroughs Art Portfolio of Stage Celebrities, 1894
Born
Annie B. Lewis

c. 1869
Washington D. C., USA
DiedOctober 5, 1896(1896-10-05) (aged 27)
Washington D. C., USA
Other namesLittle Annie Lewis
OccupationMusical comedy soubrette
Spouse(s)Wilton Lackaye

Biography

Annie B. Lewis was born and raised in Washington D. C. where her father, Charles Lewis, clerked for the U. S. Treasury Department. Early on Lewis demonstrated a talent for mimicry and by age four she was performing on stage under the eye of her mother, Amelia Lewis, a former parlor entertainer. At that age her song-and-dance routine oftentimes would be performed atop a piano to enable her to be seen by the audience.[1][2][3]

By sixteen Lewis was touring the country with her own company as the soubrette in Lincoln A. Fisher's Little Trump,[4][5] and the following year with Charles Verner in Shamus O’Brien, a romantic comedy from the poem by Frederick Maeder and Thomas B. Macdonough.[6][7] Lewis would go on to play leading roles in productions of Favette, a comedietta in one act, adapted for the stage by John Treshar from the story by Ouida;[8] Our Irish Visitor;[9] David Loyd's The Woman-Hater;[10] Gus Heege productions of A Lumber Camp in Winter and Yon Yonson; the comic opera Prince Pro Tem by Robert A. Barnet and Lewis S. Thompson, first performed at the Boston Museum on September 17, 1894;[11][12][13] Frederick Hallen and Joseph Hart's vaudeville skit Later On;[14] and A Nutmeg March by William Hawthorn.[15][16][17]

Photograph of Lewis published in The Opera Glass magazine, 1894

In May 1895 she supported Camille D'Arville at the Broadway Theatre in A Daughter of the Revolution, a historical comic opera by J. Cheever Goodwin and Ludwig Engländer.[18] A short time later ill health would force her to withdraw from performing.[3]

Lewis married William Lackey on December 22, 1886, in Essex, Ontario, Canada. Lackey was known on the stage as Wilton Lackaye and would go on to have a long career in theater and film. At the time she was 17 and he 25.[19][20]

She died in October 1896 at her parents' Washington home, nearly a year after what was thought to have been a bad cold had developed into tuberculosis. Lewis spent some time in the months that followed in the American Southwest in a hope that the dry weather there would help improve her health. A successful benefit concert organized by her brother-in-law in the summer of 1896 in Washington D. C. raised needed funds for her care. Just two years earlier it had been reported in the press that Lewis had purchased in cash a $9,000 granite-and-brick house for her parents in the Chevy Chase, neighborhood of Washington D. C.[3][21]

Sources
  1. 1870 US Census Records, Charles and Amelia Lewis, Ancestry.com
  2. Munsey’s Magazine; vol. 11; 1894; pg. 298 accessed June 27, 2012
  3. Little Annie Lewis Dead – The Evening Times (Washington D. C.); October 5, 1896; pg. 1 accessed June 27, 2012
  4. Little Trump Advertisement - Fort Wayne Daily Gazette; October 17, 1885; pg. 5
  5. Fisher, A. Lincoln-Little Trump; or, Rocky Mountain Diamond: A Drama In Three Acts accessed June 27, 2012
  6. Brown, Thomas Alston - A History of the New York Stage; 1903; pg. 260 accessed June 27, 2012
  7. Shamus Obrien Advertisement-The Lowell Sun; October 10, 1886; pg. 4
  8. Adams, William Davenport - A Dictionary of the Drama, 1904; pg. 504
  9. Author unknown, performed by the vaudeville team, Murray and Murphy in the mid-1880s, Brown, Thomas Allston', A History of the New York Stage; 1903; pg. 226
  10. Lloyd, David Demarest – The Woman-Hater accessed June 28, 2012
  11. Barnett, Robert A., Thompson, Lewis S. Prince Pro Tem accessed June 28, 2012
  12. No title-The Sandusky Register 9 May 1894; pg. 6 col. 5; Ancestry.com
  13. A Lumber Camp in Winter, Yon Yonson, The Wichita Daily Eagle; December 12, 1891; pg. 8 accessed June 28, 2012
  14. Advertisement - The New York Herald, October 31, 1889; pg. 14, col. 1 accessed June 28, 2012
  15. The New York Clipper Annual; 1893; pg. 155 accessed June 28, 2012
  16. Opera Glass, Volume 1; 1894; pg. 57 accessed June 29, 2012
  17. Burroughs, Marie - The Marie Burroughs Art Portfolio of Stage Celebrities: 1904 accessed June 28, 2012
  18. Miss D’Arville’s New Opera- New York Times; May 28, 1895; pg. 5 accessed June 28, 2012
  19. Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928 about William Lackey - Name: William Lackey - Birth Place: Washington DC US - Age: 25 - Estimated Birth Year: abt 1861 - Father Name: James Lackey - Mother Name: Margaret Lackey - Spouse Name: Annie B. Lewis - Spouse's Age: 17 - Spouse Birth Place: Washington D C - Spouse Father Name: Charles E Lewis - Spouse Mother Name: Amelia Lewis -Marriage Date: 22 Dec 1886 - Marriage County or District: Essex -Ancestry. com
  20. National Police Gazette; January 12, 1889; pg. 2; col. 4; Fulton History accessed June 27, 2012
  21. No Title-The New York Daily Mirror; December 8, 1894; pg. 4; col. 4 accessed June 28, 2012
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