Irishlives

Ada Rehan 1857-1916:ADA REHAN, an American actor, was born on April 22nd, 1857, in Limerick, the fifth of the six children of Thomas Crehan and Harriet Crehan (nee Ryan) of Limerick. (Thomas Crehan, an adventurer and speculator, was in prison for smuggling when he met and courted Harriet Ryan, the jail matron's daughter.)

Born Bridget Crehan, she took the name Ada before going on the stage; in life she was best known as Ada Rehan, the result of a printer’s error, “Ada C Rehan”, which she accepted as her professional name.

After emigrating to the US with her family in 1865, she attended elementary schools in Brooklyn, New York, but was not educated after the age of 15, when she began her life on the stage. She had mastered 17 speaking parts, from farce to Shakespeare, before she was 18, testimony to extensive apprenticeship.

During much of her life she lacked a permanent residence, as she was constantly on tour in North America and, later, Europe. She joined the Arch Street Theatre of Philadelphia, establishing an admired critical reputation, before working with a succession of stock companies. In 1879 she joined the company of John Augustin Daly, for whom she became a leading performer of the New York stage as well as the London stage from 1884. His dominance over her career has been compared to that of the fictional Svengali and Trilby. Her first role on Broadway was in Daly's version of L'Assommoir, and later she opened Daly's own theatre as Nelly Beers in Love's Young Dream.

Not often seen in Irish roles, she did appear on stage with Dion Boucicault, as well as in his plays, met Oscar Wilde and exchanged letters with George Bernard Shaw. The greatest triumph of her career came when she was 31, playing Katharina in The Taming of the Shrewfor the opening, on May 29th, 1888, of Daly's Gaiety Theatre, on Leicester Square in London. From 1879 to 1899 she was the most loved actress of the New York stage, exceeded in the English-speaking world only by Ellen Terry (1847-1928).

From this acclaim she suffered a precipitous fall, when the arch and artificial style of her and Daly’s comedy fell out of fashion. Her final public appearance was in May 1905. Although a semi-invalid in later years, she lived in affluent comfort from astute investments, and divided her time between England and New York city, where she died on January 8th, 1916. She never married and bore no children.

Adapted from the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography. See dib.ie