The winner of a copy of the book Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the
Old West is Sarah Rozowski.
The Great Shakespearean Actress, Matilda Heron
Among the greatest actresses who brought Shakespeare to California in the early 1850s was Irish-born Matilda Heron. She was still in her early twenties, virtually at the beginning of her career, and she arrived under circumstances that were bound to stir the chivalrous impulses of romantic San Francisco. Trained Shakespearean actors said of her ability that they had never known “a more original, lawless, interesting woman, among the luminaries of the stage,” and to describe her as “an exponent of the elemental passions, in their universal flow and ebb; she was the whirlwind, not the zephyr.”
It was not, however, as the whirlwind that Miss Heron swept to an immediate conquest of California theatre goers during Christmas week of 1853. San Francisco thrilled to her “noble conduct,” her pious and munificent charity.” On the third night she was performed in the busy city she was presented with a superlatively dazzling diamond cross in recognition of the generosity with which she promptly dispatched the proceeds of her benefit to the widow of her manager, who had died on the voyage up from Panama.
Born in County Cork in 1830, Matilda emigrated to the United States in 1842. She was living in Philadelphia when she began appearing professionally in plays. In 1853 she traveled to California and gained popularity. In 1854, she was married to lawyer Henry Herbert Byrne in San Francisco, but the union lasted but a few months. While in Paris in 1855, Heron saw the popular play La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias), and decided to present her own version, in English, in America. The resulting “Camille” for which she is best known, had its New York debut in January 1857 at Wallack’s Theatre.
In 1857, Heron wed composer Robert Stoepel (they separated in 1869). During the 1861-1862 season Heron wrote “The Belle of the Season” and starred in it at the Winter Garden. In 1863, she gave birth to a daughter, Helen Wallace Stoepel, better known as Bijou Heron, who became an actress herself. By the late 1860s, and as her health began to wane, Matilda Heron receded from the spotlight and taught acting. A big benefit show was done to raise funds for her in January 1872, which included Edwin Booth, Jules Levy, John Brougham, and Laura Keene.
Matilda died in New York City on March 7, 1877. Her reported last words were “Tilly never did harm to anyone – poor Tilly is so happy.”
