Mrs Patrick Campbell

Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner (9 February 1865 – 9 April 1940), better known by her stage name Mrs Patrick Campbell or Mrs Pat, was an English stage actress, best known for appearing in plays by Shakespeare, Shaw and Barrie. These included Shaw's Pygmalion where she originated the role of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the West End in 1914. She also toured the United States and appeared briefly in films.

Campbell was born Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner (1829–1895), son and heir of a wealthy British Army contractor to the British East India Company, and Maria Luigia Giovanna ("Louisa Joanna") née Romanini (1836–1908), daughter of "Count" Angelo Romanini, an Italian political exile.

Her father John Tanner, a descendant of Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St Asaph, was a consul and merchant who "managed to get through two large fortunes", in part through losses in the Indian Mutiny. Her mother, Luigia Giovanna Romanini, was one of the eight daughters of Angelo Romanini, a nobleman of Brescia, and his wife Rosa (née Polinelli, of Milan). Angelo had joined the Carbonari and, as a result, had to leave Italy. He and his family travelled over Eastern Europe aided by a firman from the Sultan of Turkey. They finally found political refuge in England. Six of his eight daughters, all under eighteen, married Englishmen.

She studied for a short time at the Guildhall School of Music.

Campbell made her professional stage debut in 1888 at the Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, four years after her marriage to Patrick Campbell. In March 1890, she appeared in London at the Adelphi, where she afterward played again in 1891–93. She became successful after starring in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play, The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893) at St. James's Theatre where she also appeared in The Masqueraders (1894). She had another success as Kate Cloud in John-a-Dreams (1894), produced by Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket, and again as Agnes in The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895) at the Garrick.

Among her other performances were those in Fédora (1895), Little Eyolf (1896), and her notable performances with Forbes-Robertson at the Lyceum in London's West End in the roles of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia in Hamlet, and Lady Macbeth (1895–98) in Macbeth. Once established as a major star, Campbell assisted in the early careers of some noted actors, such as Gerald Du Maurier and George Arliss.

In 1900, Campbell, having become her own manager/director, made her debut performance on Broadway in New York City in Heimat by Hermann Sudermann, a marked success. Subsequent appearances in New York and on tour in the U.S. established her as a major theatrical presence there. Campbell would regularly perform on the New York stage until 1933. Other performances included roles in The Joy of Living (1902), Pelléas et Mélisande (1904; as Melisande to the Pelleas of her friend Sarah Bernhardt), Hedda Gabler (1907), Electra, The Thunderbolt (both 1908), and Bella Donna (1911).

In 1914, she played Eliza Doolittle in the original West End production of Pygmalion, which George Bernard Shaw had expressly written for her. Although forty-nine years old when she originated the role opposite the Henry Higgins of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she triumphed and took the play to New York and on tour in 1915 with the much younger Philip Merivale playing Higgins. She successfully played Eliza again in a 1920 London revival of the play.