Dix's Lions: Living and Dead; or, Personal Recollections of the "Great and Gifted" (1854)

Dix's Lions: Living and Dead; or, Personal Recollections of the "Great and Gifted" (1854)

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876

Macready, William Charles

Actors and Actresses

Gender Norms

Cook, Eliza, 1818-1889

Credit

Hathi Trust

Dix, John Ross, 1800?-1865

W. Tweedie

1854

Reference

Dix compared Cushman to Macready: “Miss Charlotte Cushman, the elder of the sisters, on the stage appeared very like Macready but it was only when surrounded by scenery in the glare of the footlights and dressed in male attire that the resemblance was perceptible. In a room and in feminine apparel, all likeness to certainly the greatest living tragedian vanished, was lost; a highly intellectual but certainly a remarkably homely looking lady was all that you observed. Miss Cushman was much taller than her friend Miss Cook, and less bulky indeed her figure approached to the slender her face was striking the large dark eyes were sunk in cavernous orbits, the nose short, the mouth capacious, and the chin long, projecting, and pointed.” (Dix 50–51)