American actress, dancer, painter, and poet (1835–1868)
Adah Isaacs Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken, age 19
Born
(1835-06-15)June 15, 1835
Died
August 10, 1868(1868-08-10) (aged 33)
Paris, France
Occupations
Actress
painter
poet
Adah Isaacs Menken (June 15, 1835 – August 10, 1868) was an American actress, painter and poet, and was the highest earning actress of her time.[1] She was best known for her performance in the hippodrama Mazeppa, with a climax that featured her apparently nude and riding a horse on stage. After great success for a few years with the play in New York and San Francisco, she appeared in a production in London and Paris, from 1864 to 1866. After a brief trip back to the United States, she returned to Europe. She became ill within two years and died in Paris at the age of 33.[2]
Menken told many versions of her origins, including her name, place of birth, ancestry, and religion, and historians have differed in their accounts. Most have said she was born a Louisiana Creole Catholic, with European and African ancestry. A celebrity who created sensational performances in the United States and Europe, she married several times and was also known for her affairs. She had two sons, both of whom died in infancy.[3]
Though she was better known as an actress, Menken sought to be known as a writer. She published about 20 essays, 100 poems, and a book of her collected poems, from 1855 to 1868 (the book was published posthumously). Early work was devoted to family and after her marriage, her poetry and essays featured Jewish themes. Beginning with work published after moving to New York, with which she changed her style, Menken expressed a wide range of emotions and ideas about women's place in the world. Her collection Infelicia went through several editions and was in print until 1902.
^Palmer, Pamela Lynn, "Adah Isaacs Menken", Handbook of Texas Online, published by the Texas State Historical Association, accessed August 10, 2012.
^The Antebellum Crisis and America's First Bohemians; Lause, Mark A.; Kent, OH; Kent State University Press, 2009.
AdahIsaacsMenken (June 15, 1835 – August 10, 1868) was an American actress, painter and poet, and was the highest earning actress of her time. She was...
1976) Adah Belle Thoms (1870–1943), African-American nurse of World War I AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868), American actress, painter, and poet Adah Jenkins...
March 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2014. Brooks, Daphne A. “Lady Menken’s Secret: AdahIsaacsMenken, Actress Biographies and the Race for Sensation.” Legacy...
first entertainer to pose nude for photographs was the stage actress AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868). However, a number of well-known film stars have posed...
Menken is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868), American actress, painter and poet Alan Menken (born 1949)...
cover for vital parts for roles such as Lady Godiva. American actress AdahIsaacsMenken created controversy in 1861 when she wore a flesh-colored bodystocking...
Stoddard (writing at first as "Pip Pepperpod"), Fitz Hugh Ludlow, AdahIsaacsMenken, Ada Clare, Prentice Mulford, Dan De Quille, J. S. Hittell and some...
of Emélie Cordier, an actress About 1866, Dumas had an affair with AdahIsaacsMenken, an American actress who was less than half his age and at the height...
sketches of Emily Brontë, Julie de Lespinasse, Violet Hunt, Vernon Lee, AdahIsaacsMenken and Lady Hester Stanhope. The final chapter, 'Perfect Artists', looks...
Clapp Jr., Ada Clare, Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress AdahIsaacsMenken. Similar groups in other cities were broken up as well by the Civil...
August 7 – Pedro de Ampudia, Mexican General (b. 1805) August 10 – AdahIsaacsMenken, American actress (b. 1835) August 11 – Thaddeus Stevens, American...
From approximately 1862 to 1865, he was married to famous actress AdahIsaacsMenken. The name "Orpheus C. Kerr" was a play on the term "office seeker"...
ISBN 978-1-4344-3547-7. Sentilles, Renée M. (2003). Performing Menken : AdahIsaacsMenken and the birth of American celebrity. New York: Cambridge University...
(d. 1866) 1822 – Alfonso Corti, Italian anatomist (d. 1876) 1835 – AdahIsaacsMenken, American actress, painter, and poet (d. 1868) 1843 – Edvard Grieg...
George Cattermole, English illustrator and watercolourist (born 1800) AdahIsaacsMenken, American actress, painter and poet (born 1835) September 13 – Richard...
Minister of France Catulle Mendès (1841–1909), poet, man of letters AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868), actress, poet Ricardo Menon (1952–1989), artist, assistant...
leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress AdahIsaacsMenken. In 1863, Browne came to San Francisco to perform as Artemus Ward...
stained-glass window designer Edmund Darch Lewis (1835–1910), painter AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868), actress, painter and poet 1836 Winslow Homer (1836–1910)...
He died there on March 12, 1988. His subjects were: Lola Montez, AdahIsaacsMenken, Lotta Crabtree, Pauline Cushman, Catherine Sinclair, Helena Modjeska...
about Darwinism D. L. Menard (1932–2017), Cajun musician from Erath AdahIsaacsMenken (1835–1868), actress Emile Meyer (1910–1987), actor Jerome Meyinsse...
to have had an affair with famous American Louisiana-born actress AdahIsaacsMenken, who performed frequently in England. During his life Mace made and...
Global Information