Rose Melville

Rose Melville (January 30, 1867 or 1873 - October 8, 1946) born Rose Smock,[2] was an American stage actress famous for playing one character her whole career, Sis Hopkins.[3] Melville got her start in 1889 at Zanesville, Ohio playing a male role in a play called Queen's Evidence. Other known plays she appeared in were Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Two Orphans and Fanchon the Cricket.[4]

Rose Melville
Melville c. 1903
Born
Rose Smock

January 30, 1867 or 1873
Terre Haute, Indiana,[1] U.S.
DiedOctober 8, 1946
Lake George, New York, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1889-1920s
Spouse(s)
  • Frank Melville (died 1908)
  • Frank Minzey
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1910; died 1939)​

Mellville had a sister Ida, together they formed a traveling stock company. In 1894 a play called Zeb was produced in which Melville performed the Sis Hopkins character for the first time. The play was so successful that it was brought to New York that same year. The Sis Hopkins character appeared in three more plays Little Christopher, The Prodigal Father;1896–97 and By the Sad Sea Waves; 1898-99. Melville presented Sis Hopkins in Vaudeville in a sketch called Sis Hopkins' Visit. After this sketch she had it rewritten as a longer play called Sis Hopkins. It was this play that garnered her greatest fame and she eventually performed it over 5,000 times.

In 1916 the Kalem Company contracted with Rose Melville to make twenty-one short films all with Melville starring in her Sis Hopkins character. She dispensed with the Sis Hopkins character briefly in the 20s to play in two feature films in 1922 and 1923. In 1918 Goldwyn Pictures produced a feature film version of the Sis Hopkins play starring Mabel Normand. The film is now lost.

References
  1. Rose Melville; North American Theatre Online
  2. Silent Film Necrology, page 362 2nd edit. by Eugene M. Vazzana c.2001 ISBN 0-7864-1059-0
  3. The Oxford Companion To American Theatre, p.472 2nd edit. c.1992 by Gerald Bordman ISBN 0-19-507246-4
  4. Who Was Who in the Theatre: 1912-76, p.1676 vol,3 I-P compiled from editions produced annually by John Parker ISBN 0-8103-0406-6
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