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Biography
Evelyn Millard (1869-1941) was the daughter of John Millard, a teacher of elocution at London’s Royal Academy of Music. She studied at the Female School of Art in Queen Square. However, she did not become a professional artist – a striking beauty, she became an actress. After making her first stage appearance in 1891 as a walk-on at the Haymarket Theatre, she joined Sarah Thorne at the Theatre Royal in Margate, where the roles she played included Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing.
At the end of the 1891-2 season at the Royal Adelphi Theatre, she played the minor role of Alice Lee in a production, starring Mrs. Patrick Campbell, of The White Rose (an adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's novel Woodstock by Sims and Buchanan). As she so obviously pleased the audience, she was retained for the following season and, in 1893, she and Mrs. Patrick Campbell were the female rivals for the hero’s affection in another Sims and Buchanan play, The Black Domino.
With a growing reputation, she had considerable stage successes. She played Cecily Cardew in the first performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest which premiered at St. James’s Theatre, London, on February 14, 1895. In 1897, she joined Beerbohm Tree’s company and played Portia in Julius Caesar. This brought her to the attention of Charles Frohman, the American theatrical manager, who had taken over the lease of the Duke of York's Theatre. For the next few years, she was his main attraction, creating the parts of Lady Ursula Barrington in Anthony Hope's comedy, The Adventure of Lady Ursula (1898), Glory Quayle in The Christian (1899), the title role in Jerome K. Jerome's Miss Hobbs (l899), and Cho-Cho-San in the British premiere of David Belasco's Madame Butterfly which opened on 28 April 28, 1900, and ran for sixty-eight performances.
In 1900, she married Robert Porter Coulter. However, she continued her theatre career, appearing both in classical and modern plays. Lewis Waller was a favourite partner of hers at this time. She appeared with him in His Majesty’s Servant (1904) and as Desdemona in his production of Othello (1906).
In 1908, she formed her own successful touring company, starring in a variety of roles that included Ophelia (1910) in Hamlet and Olivia in Twelfth Night (1912). As for many actors of her era, the First World War effectively brought an end to her theatrical career. She did play Calpurnia in Julius Caesar during the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration in 1916.
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