Sarah Siddons

Sarah Siddons (née Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified". She was the elder sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character Lady Macbeth, a character she made her own. The Sarah Siddons Society, founded in 1952, continues to present the Sarah Siddons Award annually in Chicago to a distinguished actress. Background The 18th-century marked the 'emergence of a recognisably modern celebrity culture' and Siddons was at the heart of it. Portraits depicted actresses in aristocratic dress, the recently industrialised newspapers spread actresses' names and images and gossip about their private lives spread through the public. Though few people had actually seen Siddons perform, her name had been circulated to such an extent that when it was announced 'the crowd behaved as if they knew her already'. Actresses playing and acting like aristocrats decreased the difference in the public's eyes between actresses and aristocrats and many earned large amounts of money. Despite this giving actresses a larger amount of control, women were still viewed as 'extreme representations of femininity - they were good or bad, comic or tragic, prostitutes or virgins, mistresses or mothers'. Their on-stage roles and personal biographies blurred - leading to many actresses using these extreme representations of femininity to create a persona that could be viewed both on and off stage.