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Helena Modjeska, Virginia City, Nevada’s Favorite Actress
It was 1848 that Austria retracted an arrangement with Poland to allow Cracow, the capital of Poland, to exist as a free city, attacked Cracow bombarded it and took possession. Accompanying this tragedy to the Poles was much bloodshed and sorrow. Cracow became a city of turmoil and grief. Amidst the terror Helena Opid, the daughter of a teacher in the school of Cracow, grew up. She was destined to become one of the world’s greatest actresses, and without doubt the stern times in which she spent her youth had much effect in her capacity for displaying the emotions which she inevitably achieved.
Brought up in a classic atmosphere of culture and music, Helena developed a passion for acting at an early age. It is said that after her first visit to a theatre, where she witnessed a performance of “The Daughter of the Regiment,” she spent many hours acting out the play she had seen to her friends.
When very young Helena met Gustav Modrezejewski, a friend of the family who taught Helena and her many brothers and sisters German. Modrezejewski was twenty years Helena senior when they married and settled down to a quiet domestic life.
When she was twenty her son was born. Soon Helena her husband and baby and mother moved to a little town called Bochnie, in Austrian Poland. Bochnie was a center of salt mines and soon after Helena arrival in the village, there occurred a frightening accident in which many miners were killed. The good citizens organized an amateur performance to raise funds for the relief of the widows and orphans.
On this occasion, Helena Modejska – as she was later known because English speaking audience had difficulty pronouncing her full name – made her first appearance on the stage. So great was her success that Helena and her husband – who was appointed her manager – organized a little traveling troupe that went around the country performing.
To learn how Helena got to America and became star read Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West.
