On the Other Maggie Mitchell

Funny it is that 19th century actress Maggie Mitchell (1837-1918) was born on Flag Day — for legend has it that she once danced on an American flag during a performance in Montgomery, Alabama. She was more partial to the Star and Bars, you see, and a pal of John Wilkes Booth. Was Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Windnamed after her? If not, it was quite a coincidence! Anyway, she later repudiated her earlier beliefs, if beliefs they were. Many a thespian of the Civil War era played both sides of the fence, viz. our own Adah Isaacs Menken.

Ironically, Abraham Lincoln was also one of her admirers. It seems like everyone was. She became wealthy many times over playing roles like Jane Eyre. Fanchon the Cricket, and Mignon (though whether from Balzac or Goethe, I cannot say). We do not celebrate her as much as feel she is worth mentioning, both on her own account, and because she was the aunt of the important Broadway stage director Julian Mitchell of The Wizard of Oz, several Weber and Fields productions, several editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and more. We wrote about him here. Julian began his career with his aunt’s company — no doubt she taught him a trick or two of the trade, and helped his career along. She was also the aunt of stage and screen Dodson Mitchell, who was in a handful of silent films and nearly 60 Broadway theatrical productions, including the original production of Clyde Fitch’sBarbara Frietchie and the first American production of John Bull’s Other Island by Shaw.

Like contemporaries Laura Keene (who was acting at Ford’s Theatre on the night Lincoln was assassinated), as well as Lola Montez, Frank Morgan, Henry Montague, E.P. Christy, Henry C. Miner, Peter F. Dailey,Billy West,Ada Rehan, Florence LaBadie, Charles Inslee,William Niblo,Charles Feltman, George C. Tilyou, William J. Florence, and victims of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire, she is buried at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery — a very good place to visit if you want to honor America’s theatrical and amusement history.

For more on the silent film, please read  Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, and for more on show biz history read No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,