Stage actress Fay Davis’ Maine roots divulged

The story of Fay Davis, the Houlton girl who became one of the leading actresses of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, according to her obituary in The New York Times, is so remarkable it’s surprising it is not better known today.

I had never heard of her until I found a story in the Bangor Daily News written a century ago, back when Mainers were “discovering” this English superstar who was really from the state’s frontier region, where older people were still regularly referred to as “pioneers.”

“Miss Fay Davis is a Maine girl, born in Houlton, and 15 or more years ago, used to make prolonged and frequent visits with friends in this city,” wrote the reporter for the NEWS. “When last in Bangor she was no better known than is any bright and popular society girl. Now she is one of the most famous actresses upon the English-speaking stage.”

Davis was then 34 or 35 years old. She was still unmarried and at the peak of her career, untouched by the great tragedy that would enter her life some years later. To piece together her story, I found myself surveying a wide variety of sketchy sources, including some of the 190 references to her in The New York Times that appeared during the first half of the last century. The results are unsatisfying. Perhaps a reader knows where there is more material?

Why exactly did Fay Davis make the improbable leap from Houlton to Boston to London? One thing is clear: She had a great deal of talent and not a little personal charm and good luck.

Davis was born in 1868 or 1869 in Houlton, although her New York Times obituary places the event in Boston as does a Web site, connected to Emory University, on Shakespearean actors. My bet is on Houlton, because that’s the location given by Lewis C. Strang, a contemporary author who interviewed Davis’ sister for his book, “Famous Actresses of the Day,” published in 1899, before Davis had acted in the United States. That’s also the location given by Cora Putnam, author of a history of Houlton that gives many details of Davis family’s connections in Houlton and in the Bangor area.

Her maternal grandfather owned the Snell Hose, a famous old Houlton hotel. Her father, Asa Davis, a Civil War veteran who served time in a Confederate prison, was the stepson of Mrs. Eben Woodbury. Eben was a Houlton merchant, postmaster and Republican politician who served in the Legislature.

Davis moved with her family to Boston in 1881, where she took elocution lessons from notable instructors because of her success in school recitations. Soon the Rev. Minot J. Savage, a well-placed Unitarian divine, took her under his wing, securing her engagements “in circles that perhaps otherwise would have been closed to her.” The people in her audiences included Madame Lillian Nordica, the opera star from Farmington, and some other notables who opened doors for her when she got to London.

In 1895, Fay went to England for a rest with her sister after a particularly arduous tour of recitations on the “American lyceum platform.” In London she was invited to entertain the friends of English artist Felix Moscheles with a reading, which so impressed her listeners that she was invited to perform at a benefit at the Criterion Theater, where she was seen by the manager, Sir Charles Wyndham. He invited her to perform in one of his plays.

“Before the play began she was practically unknown to the critics and the public. When the play ended, the theater was ringing with her praises, and the next day she was the talk of London,” according to Strang, the author of several books on theater celebrities.

She was brought to New York City to perform in 1902 by theatrical manager Charles Frohman, known in the press as “the Napoleon of the drama.” A few years later he died aboard the Lusitania.

“The American stage has gained an actress of the first quality,” enthused New York Times theater critic John Corbin.

Davis played in the great dramas of the day, many of them long forgotten. They included “The Prisoner of Zenda” and “Man and Superman.” She was also a noted Shakespearean actress, playing leading roles in such plays as “As You Like It” and “Much Ado About Nothing.” Late in life she married Gerald Lawrence, a Shakespearean actor, and they had a daughter.

She also starred in at least one bomb, “The House of Mirth,” causing author Edith Wharton to speculate it was no longer possible to produce a comedy of manners on an American stage.

But it was in England where Davis achieved her greatest fame. Queen Victoria “commanded” her to play at Windsor Castle, according to Cora Putnam, and her New York Times obituary tells us she was a favorite of Victoria’s son, King Edward VII.

Davis’ personal life is largely a blank in the sources I was able to find. Because her work was based in England and because she refused to speak to the press, at least as of 1903, there is little of a personal nature recorded about her, at least in this country. Also, back then the press did not indulge in the same level of celebrity gossip that it does today.

But on July 6, 1930, tragedy struck the Lawrence-Davis household. Their 22-year-old-daughter, Margery, was shot to death by her husband of one year, Eardley Cotterill, a 24-year-old engineer who had just returned from a trip to Africa. Then he turned the gun on himself. The murder-suicide took place moments after Cotterill had returned from his trip, met with the whole family and then entered another room to talk to his wife, according to a brief story in the New York Times.

Fay Davis continued to act for three more years, and she died in 1945 in England.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.