Mrs Bernard-Beere, the Victorian actress

The streets of Kilburn and West Hampstead were home to literally hundreds of actors, actresses and musical hall artistes. A handful were very successful, but the majority were hardworking performers who made their living touring the country. They used professional newspapers to advertise their ‘availability’ often giving a friend or relative’s address where they could be sure of receiving a letter, as their nomadic lives made it hard and expensive to maintain a permanent home. When they rented accommodation, it was generally for a few months at a time, to fulfil a local engagement.

Actress Mrs Bernard-Beere was successful enough to afford a permanent London home that she left empty when touring. In 1883 she was at 63 York Terrace, Regent’s Park; by 1890 her home was a cottage on Marylebone Road. She next moved to West Hampstead, renting No.8 Carlton Mansions in West End Lane, from April 1899 to 1902. The block of flats was newly built and today is the Francis Gardner Hall for student accommodation, near the corner of Gascony Avenue.

Mrs Bernard Beere in 'A Life of Pleasure', 1893

She was born Fanny Mary Whitehead in 1851, the daughter of Francis Wilby Whitehead, artist and picture dealer of King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. On 6 October 1874 Fanny made her first and on the face of it, very good marriage, to Army officer Edward Cholmeley Dering, the son of Sir Edward Dering, MP. She had been working for the caterers, restaurant and theatre owners Spiers and Pond, where she ‘attracted the admiration of Mr Dering’. However, the marriage was not advertised as usual in the newspapers. Fanny was about eight months pregnant at the time and subsequent events indicate that so far as Edward was concerned, it was a means of gaining custody of his child. Daughter Janet Elizabeth Adela was born on 12 November but tragically Edward died on the 17^th. His obituaries noted he had been ill for only two days before his death at their home in 6 Jermyn Street. He left less than £1,000 to his brother George Edward Dering, the guardian of baby Janet who he named as his only next of kin. The newspapers mention Dering’s first wife and his parents, but the fact he had married again and had a child was conspicuously absent. It was said Fanny received a generous annuity, but this probably ceased after her daughter Janet died the following January. She was to be Fanny’s only child.

Fanny was an attractive and charismatic actress, who developed a dedicated following. Reviews reveal she was capable of great acting. Indeed, she was once called ‘the English Bernhardt’ for her performance in ‘Fedora’ but reoccurring illness and nerves limited her career to some degree. There is no indication why she decided to become an actress and sources differ as to whether she began acting before or after her first marriage. Accordingly, her first appearance on stage is reported at the Opera Comique under Mr Hingston, who managed it from October 1872 to December 1873. Or it was in late 1877, at the Gaiety Theatre, in ‘School for Scandal’.

It is generally agreed that Fanny trained under the American elocution teacher Herman Vezin with help from Willie Wilde, Oscar’s brother. To begin with, she was described as an ‘awful stick’ but Fanny worked hard on training her voice. She became successful and appeared with some of the leading theatre companies such as the Bancrofts and Beerbohm Tree.

‘Fedora’ and Floria in “La Tosca” were perhaps her best roles: while Mrs Sternhold (“Still Waters Run Deep”), Peg Woffington (“Masks and Faces”), Lena Despard (“As in a Looking Glass”) and Mrs Arbuthnot (“A Woman of No Importance”), were other major successes for ‘Bernie Beere’ as she was known. At various times she was also a producer of plays and a theatre manager. Less certain are claims that the poet Thackeray was her godfather and that he called her as a child, ‘the little actress’.

In August 1876 Fanny married for a second time. Many reports call him ‘Bernard Beere’ because she adopted this as her stage name, but in reality, he was Edward Beer. The marriage took place at the fashionable St George’s Bloomsbury when the couple were living at nearby 23 Alfred Place. The marriage certificate describes him as a merchant and he seems also to have been a traveller, probably working for his father Isaac’s provision business.

Fanny had many admirers. In November 1887 the sudden death of banker and MP Lord Wolverton was widely reported in the press. The rumours that circulated about the contents of his will were mostly incorrect, including the bequest of large sum of money to his friend Mr Gladstone. Another paper described, ‘a trifling legacy of £500 is all that Mrs Bernard Beere is to have’. In fact, that would have been worth around £60,000 today. When the will was published in February 1888, Fanny’s name did not appear. That’s not to say she didn’t benefit: the Pall Mall Gazette commented, ‘Like so many wills Lord Wolverton’s is remarkable only for its omissions’, further noting ‘the absence of those provisions that has been expected on personal grounds, although possibly it was more seemly that they should be provided for privately’.

By 1890, Fanny had moved into Church Cottage alongside St Marylebone parish church at No.17 Marylebone Road. A reporter described it as, ‘a delightful bijou residence. It is a tiny labyrinth of rich and strange things. The walls are hidden beneath a collection of photographs with the friendly inscriptions of celebrities. Her favourite room is known as the Red Room, and to this only friends and visitors of distinction are admitted. There is one of the hugest armchairs ever made, in which Mrs Bernard Beere can coil herself at will’. It’s possible her second marriage didn’t last long as no mention was made of any husband when Fanny was interviewed at Church Cottage. (The house was still standing in the 1950s).

In the early part of 1892, Fanny toured Australia. The Antipodean press had already paid her a lot of mixed attention. In 1888 an Australian reporter judged that, ‘she is nearly at her zenith. I do not think she will last very long. Her nature is one of such a combustible character that she is using up her vital forces very fast’. However, another thought her, ‘the rising actress of the day’. The tour started badly when the first performance of Fanny’s much-loved ‘Fedora’ was brought to a premature close. She had struggled to continue but finally left the stage after two of the supporting actors had to be continuously prompted by her. She told the audience: ‘I trust you will excuse me, I could not finish the part’. Indeed, she prided herself on being word perfect: ‘I have never yet forgotten my words; in fact I shudder to think what would happen if I ever required to be prompted. I think I should lose my wits altogether, and the curtain would have to be rung down’. It was reported her Australian agent lost over £3,000 but Fanny recalled her visit down-under with great affection. An American tour later that year when she was engaged at a basic salary of £500 a week, was also a failure, Fanny returning to England in January 1893. She blamed theatrical mismanagement and being asked to perform in a theatre unsuited to the role she was playing.

Later that year Fanny was engaged to play Mrs Arbuthnot, the character referred to in the title of Oscar Wilde’s play, “A Woman of No Importance”. It opened on 19 April and ran for 118 nights at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. She received very good reviews, the Times going so far as to describe her performance as, ‘one of the most pleasing and most impressive of her creations’. Fanny was a personal friend of Oscar Wilde who called her ‘Dear Bernie’. Two years later, she was one of several sympathisers who wrote to him in Holloway Prison after he had lost his libel case against the Marquis of Queensbury and was awaiting trial for gross indecency.

There are several press reports of Fanny falling ill or having hysterics and having to cancel performances throughout her career, while her increasing poor health during the 1890s often kept her from the stage. It was noted that she missed (at least) the last night of “A Woman of No Importance”. Concerns were raised that she wasn’t strong enough for the demands the work imposed. Fanny told a reporter that, ‘I am distinctly nervous but I believe that adds to the value of my acting when playing a good emotional part’. In 1896 she was so ill that it was feared she might not recover. But she did and returned to the theatre in 1898.

Two years later Fanny married for a third and final time when she was living at Carlton Mansions in West End Lane. On 17 April 1900 a quiet wedding took place at St Mary’s Church in Abbey Road. Aged 34, Alfred Charles Seymour Olivier was several years her junior and gave his profession as that of a ‘Gentleman’, the son of Rev. Canon Dacres Olivier of Salisbury Cathedral. The two close friends who signed as witnesses also gave the bride away and acted as best man: the Reverend Thomas Noon Talfourd Major (vicar of Thundersley in Essex), and Rudolph Doran Holtz. When asked, Alfred said he would prefer his wife retired, but recognising what a loss this would be to the stage, it had been agreed she would continue acting for the time being.

On 18 June 1900 the couple were travelling on a Windsor-bound train that had stopped at Slough station to take on passengers, when the West of England Express ploughed into the rear at full speed, telescoping the last two carriages. 70 passengers were injured and five died. Fanny and Alfred were reported as shaken and bruised, but she was probably more seriously affected than most papers reported, returning to London a couple of days later, she was carried to her train from her Slough hotel in an invalid chair. The accident undoubtedly contributed to Fanny’s declining health in later years.

Reports of her acting are absent until October 1905 when she made a ‘welcome reappearance upon the London stage’, as Mere Michaud in a short run of a sketch entitled “The Spy” at Oswald Stoll’s London Coliseum. The reviews were generally favourable but when Stoll altered part of the programme and Fanny gave a recitation, it was less well received. This was the last time she appeared on stage.

Fanny and Alfred had moved to 41 St Mary’s Mansions, St Mary’s Terrace in Paddington by 1911. He gave his occupation as wine merchant, but she left the occupation space blank. The couple had moved again, to Lauderdale Mansions, when on 25 March 1915 Fanny died at a Maida Vale nursing home, suffering heart failure after an operation for peritonitis. She was buried at St Marylebone Cemetery East Finchley, (now East Finchley Cemetery). That November, her theatrical relics were sold at auction, including personal letters from Oscar Wilde. Her husband Alfred Olivier died in Epsom in May 1922 and was buried alongside his wife.

Fanny merited an obituary in the Times. It called her ‘a fine emotional actress’, but today ‘Bernie-Beere’, her stage roles and many achievements, have largely been forgotten.