Maude Adams

Women in the Arts » Entertainment/Theatre

Noted actress, drama teacher, and inventor of the high-powered incandescent lamp (which made colored movies possible). A child star at age five, Adams would rise to even greater fame for such parts as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Duke of Reichstadt (the son of Napolean II) in L’Aiglon, and Peter in Peter Pan. Historian Anne Seagraves observed that Adams “put more acting and emotion into one scene than most ordinary actresses knew how to use during an entire play.” During her acting career, Adams split time between her acting company in San Francisco and her family’s ranch in Salt Lake City. She later taught drama to young women at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, before retiring at age seventy-eight.