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This real photograph cigarette card is from a series issued in England about 1900 with Ogden's Guinea Gold Cigarettes. It features a photograph of the American actresses Isabelle Evesson and Estelle Clayton (née Evesson). Both were the daughters of Henry Evesson Jr and his wife, Florence.
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'A NEW LEADING ACTRESS.
'Sketch of the Career of Isabelle Evesson, Who Will Play at the Columbia Theater [Brooklyn].
'The talent of Isabelle Evesson, the new leading woman at the Columbia Theater, has been tested on both sides of the Atlantic. The plays now in preparation at the Columbia require in the roles for feminine leads one who is handsome, clever and winsome and able to play with equal success parts as wifely different as Fanny Le Grand in Sapho or Billy Piper in The Danites.
'Miss Evesson comes from an old Knickerbocker family of New York and got her first taste for the stage in school, where she played in amateur theatricals. She belongs to the good school of actors who began at the foot. In her case it was in Augustin Daly's company and she soon showed talent enough to be made understudy for Miss [Adah] Rehan. When the road company went out she played important character parts with much success. She spent one season with McKee Rankin, another at Wallack's, in Manhattan, and was two years in London with Charles Wyndham's company. She also played three years at the Boston Museum. Last Season she was with the American Stock Company and the Forepaugh Company, in Philadelphia.
Miss Eversson will begin her work in Brooklyn next week Monday. She is a sister of Estelle Clayton.'
(The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, Sunday, 9 February 1902, p.5f)
'EVESSON, Miss Isabelle:
'Actress, was born in St. Louis in 1870 [actually about 1865]. She was fourteen years old when she decided on a stage career. Her mother took her to Augustin Daly and she remained in his company two years, playing small parts and understudying. When she left Daly's Theatre she played a short engagement with Richard Mansfield, and then at Wallack's Theatre created the rôle of Fuchsia Leach in Moths. After this she was leading woman at the Boston Museum for two seasons. Sir Charles Wyndham saw her there and offered her a prominent part at his London theatre. Returning to the United States, she toured as Dearest in Little Lord Fauntleroy. While playing Rosa Leigh in Rosedale she met and married a companion of her childhood, Almyr Wilder Cooper, a well-known newspaper man, nephew of Clark Davis, for many years editor of the Philadelphia Times. In less than two years Mr. Cooper was killed in an accident. His widow later assumed her maiden name, accepted an engagement from Charles Frohman and returned to the stage. Miss Evesson was leading woman at the American Theatre when it first opened with a stock company. She played two successful seasons with the Keith Stock Company at Providence, R.I. The season of 1904 she was starred in In the Palace of the King, and the seasons of 1905-6 was leading a woman at Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York. Her home is at 108 West Forty-fourth street, New York.'
(Walter Browne and E. De Roy Koch, Who's Who on the Stage, B.W. Dodge & Co, New York, 1908, p.160)
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