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Dame Madge Kendal DBE (1848 - 1935), born Margaret Shafto Robertson, was an English actress born in Great Grimsby, of a theatrical family, being the sister of T. W. Robertson, a dramatist and one of 22 children of William Robertson. Mrs. Kendal's first stage appearance was as Marie, "a child", in The Orphan of the Frozen Sea in 1854 in London. She soon showed such talent both as actress and singer that she secured numerous engagements, and in 1865 was playing Ophelia and Desdemona at the Haymarket Theatre in London. She was Mary Meredith in Our American Cousin with Sothern, and Pauline to his Claud Melnotte. But her most notable successes were at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies.
