Blanche Walsh

Who was Blanche Walsh?

Blanche Walsh was a highly regarded American stage actress who appeared in one film, Resurrection based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy and the first three reel treatment of any Tolstoy story.

Walsh's father was Thomas Power "Fatty" Walsh, a Tammany politician and a prison warden. She made her stage debut at 15 in 1888 and acted in Charles Frohman's stock company. Walsh trooped for years in support of bigger names like Marie Wainwright, William Gillette and Nat C. Goodwin. In 1896 she accompanied Goodwin on a tour of Australia in Trilby.

Walsh began picking up the emotional roles that Fanny Davenport had been playing, as Davenport was ill for a time prior to her 1898 death. Walsh was much younger than Davenport but bore a strong resemblance to her. After several years apprenticing in the emotional roles, Walsh moved up to more challenging parts such as Maslova the prostitute in Tolstoy's Resurrection and Margaret Rolfe in The Woman in the Case. She also starred in a production of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata in 1904.