Eva Le Gallienne, 92; Actress Was a Giant of the Theater

Eva Le Gallienne, who carved for herself one of most prominent niches in American theatrical history, has died.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the longtime actress, director and producer died at her home in Weston, Conn., on Monday at 92.

From her acting debut in 1915 to her last stage appearance in 1982 as the White Queen in a Broadway production of “Alice in Wonderland”--in which she flew around the Virginia Theater on wires at the age of 83--she brought glamour, dedication and principle to her many roles.

Considered by many the country’s prime devotee of classical drama, she believed that plays, like books, should be plentiful and convenient. Out of that grew her efforts to establish national repertory theater companies in America.

She was born in London to British poet Richard Le Gallienne and Danish author-critic Julie Norregaard. Miss Le Gallienne was inspired to go on the stage as a small girl when her father took her to see Sarah Bernhardt.

“From that moment on, the theater became to me the all-important aim,” she wrote in her memoirs.

Miss Le Gallienne studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her debut with Constance Collier’s company in London at 15. She came to New York in 1915 playing Rose in “Mrs. Boltay’s Daughters” and later toured with Ethel Barrymore and Elsie Janis. Despite her British heritage, most of her career was on this side of the Atlantic.

She became a star in 1921 as Julie in the first American production of Ferenc Molnar’s “Liliom.” Two years later she starred again on Broadway, this time as Princess Alexandra in “The Swan.”

In 1926, she opened the Civic Repertory Theater off-Broadway offering low-priced versions of the classics.

With that company and others she appeared in such memorable roles as “Peter Pan,” Hilda in “The Master Builder,” “Anna Karenina,” Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet,” Hedda Tessman in “Hedda Gabler,” and Marguerite in “Camille.”

The New York Times said that in “The Master Builder,” Miss Le Gallienne “revealed every facet on the character of Hilda Wangle. . . . She created a vibrant illusion of strength, directness and eerie perception.”

She toured extensively in the 1930s and ‘40s, specializing in Ibsen, Chekov and Shakespeare, and played Napoleon’s son in “L’Aiglon,” following in the footsteps of Bernhardt. She also played “Hamlet” at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Mass., fulfilling one of her prime ambitions.

Despite her beauty and riveting stage presence, not all critics fell under her spell.

George Nathan, writing of her performance in “Camille,” was responsible for one of the most cutting lines in American theater criticism: It was, he wrote, the first Marguerite he had ever seen “die of catarrh.”

The Depression doomed her repertory company, which had run at a loss of $100,000 a year and was underwritten by patrons who could no longer afford the largess. She took her productions on tour hoping to raise needed funds but that failed.

In 1946, with Margaret Webster and Cheryl Crawford, Miss Le Gallienne established the American Repertory Co. at the International Theater in Columbus Circle. It opened on Nov. 6, 1946, with Miss Le Gallienne playing Queen Katherine in “Henry VIII.”

Despite several successful productions, it also folded.

She later starred in another production of “Alice in Wonderland.” Her portrayal of “Mary Stuart” in 1957 was remembered years later by both critics and fans as her finest role.

In the 1960s, she toured with other repertory companies, devoted much of her time to producing, and directed her own translation of “The Cherry Orchard.” She also was associated with the APA Repertory Theater and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn.

She wrote two volumes of memoirs, “At 33” and “With a Quiet Heart,” and a study of Eleanora Duse, “The Mystic in the Theatre.”

Her appearances in films were rare and anthologies list only three: “Prince of Players” (as the queen in a segment of “Hamlet” in 1955); “The Devil’s Disciple” in 1959 and “Resurrection” in 1979, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.

She received scores of awards, including the gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 1964, a special Tony.

In 1986, when she was given a National Medal of Arts, then-First Lady Nancy Reagan called her “a great actress, director, producer and teacher.”

One of her last hit roles was Fanny Cavendish, the matriarch in “The Royal Family,” a thinly disguised drama about the Barrymore family that was produced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before moving to Broadway in 1975. It was a character particularly suited to her own status as grande dame of the American theater.

She received an Emmy in 1977 for a TV production of that play.

She once told the Christian Science Monitor that she “was not a theatrical person at all. . . . I do not care for publicity. . . . I would much rather slip into the theater and do my work quietly, because it is the work that I like doing.”

There are no immediate survivors.