Maude Fealy

Who was Maude Fealy?

Maude Mary Hawk was born on March 4, 1883 in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of James Hawk and actress and acting coach, Margaret Fealy. Her mother remarried to Rafaello Cavallo, the first conductor of the Pueblo, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and Fealy lived in Colorado off and on for most of her life. At the age of three, she performed on stage with her mother and went on to make her Broadway debut in the 1900 production of Quo Vadis, again with her mother.

Fealy toured England with William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes from 1901 to 1902. Between 1902 and 1905, she frequently toured with Sir Henry Irving's company in the United Kingdom and by 1907 was the star in touring productions in the United States.

Fealy appeared in her first silent film in 1911 for Thanhouser Studios, making another eighteen between then and 1917, after which she did not perform in film for another fourteen years. During the summers of 1912 and 1913, she organized and starred with the Fealy-Durkin Company that put on performances at the Casino Theatre at Lakeside Amusement Park in Denver and the following year began touring the western half of the U.S. Fealy had some commercial success as a playwright-performer. She co-wrote The Red Cap with Grant Stewart, which ran at the National Theatre in Chicago in August 1928. Other plays authored or co-authored by Fealy include At Midnight and The Promise.

Throughout her career, Fealy taught acting in many cities where she lived. By the 1930s, she was living in Los Angeles where she became involved in the Federal Theatre Project and at age 50 returned to secondary roles in film, including a credited appearance in The Ten Commandments (1956). Later in her career, she wrote and appeared in pageants, programs, and presented lectures for schools and community organizations.

In Denver, Colorado, she met a drama critic from a local newspaper named Louis Hugo Sherwin. The two married in secret on July 15, 1907 because, as they expected, her domineering mother did not approve. The couple soon separated, and divorced in Denver in 1909. Fealy then married an actor named James Peter Durkin. He was a silent film director with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company. That marriage ended in divorce for non-support in 1917. Soon after this Fealy married James E. Cort. This third marriage ended in a 1923 annulment and would be her last marriage. She bore no children in any of the marriages.

Fealy died on November 10, 1971, aged 88, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. She was interred in the Abbey of the Psalms Mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.