Ada Meade | |
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| Born | Ada Meade Saffarans 1884 Lexington, Kentucky |
| Died | February 4, 1965 (aged 80–81) Chicago |
| Occupation | Actress |
Ada Meade Saffarans (1884 - February 4, 1965) was an American actress known professionally as Ada Meade. She performed professionally in comic drama, comic opera, and musical comedy. [1]
Meade was born in 1884 in Lexington, Kentucky. Her father was Daniel T. Saffarans. [1] Her mother was Ada Coles Meade Saffarrans, whose father was a planter in Mississippi and whose grandfather had been acting governor of Mississippi in the early 1800s. [2] Mrs. Saffrans "was the greatest heiress of her day in Mississippi", but misfortune turned the family from a luxurious lifestyle to one of frugality and simplicity. [3] The Saffarans also had a son [4] and another daughter. [5] Meade attended Sayre College and Nazareth Academy. [1] After her mother died, family friends and supporters arranged a benefit singing performance that raised enough money for Meade to go to New York to study. [3]
By age 18, Meade was performing in the operetta Babette in New York [1] with Fritzi Scheff. [3] She also performed with Scheff in Mlle. Modiste , and she gained attention when Scheff was unable to perform in the title role in an engagement in Cleveland, leading Meade to fill that role. [6] Her success in that production resulted in formation of the Ada Meade Opera Company. [7] Based in Dallas, Texas, that company presented Madame Sherry across the southern United States for two years, after which Meade studied in Paris for a year. [8] Besides its touring presentations, the company performed locally with productions including The Fortune Teller and Fra Diavolo in 1908. [9]
In addition to Babette and Mlle. Modiste, Broadway plays in which Meade performed included The Two Roses (1904), Fatinitza (1904), High Jinks (1913), The Red Canary (1914), A World of Pleasure (1915), Rambler Rose (1917), The Girl Behind the Gun (1918), and Elsie (1923). [10]
Meade was prima donna at the Winter Garden in New Orleans in 1907. [11] In 1924, she was the lead actress for the McGarry theatrical company, whose activities included presenting the musical comedy Irene in Buffalo, New York. [12]
Meade retired from performing in 1925 [1] and began a career in business. She worked for a paper company in Niagara Falls before moving to Chicago, where she worked with Marshall Field & Company. After that, she was a secretary for the American Bar Association, from which she retired in 1964. [13]
On February 4, 1965, Meade died in Chicago. [13] Her funeral service was in Lexington, and she was buried there. [1]
In 1913, the Hippodrome Theater in Lexington was sold to a group of businessmen in the city. They had the building remodeled and renamed it the Ada Meade Theatre to honor the actress. It was demolished in 1954. It was mostly a venue for vaudeville, but legitimate theater was performed there in 1922-23 when Lexington's Opera House was closed. Meade performed in her namesake theater on April 9, 1918, as part of a bond rally and on January 8 and 9, 1923, starring in the musical comedy Elsie. [1]