Maude Adams: Former Child Prodigy And An Iconic Child Actress

Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden, commonly known as Maude Adams, was an American Actress. She was born on November 11, 1872, in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. Maude achieved fame from Peter Pan’s character, first playing a role in the 1905 Broadway production of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. A large audience is inspired by her personality, which made her the most successful and highest-paid performer of the day. Adams’s yearly income was more than one million dollars during her peak time.

Adams starts to perform in movies as a child, accompanying her actress mother on tour. At the age of just 16 years, she made her Broadway debut under the management of Charles Frohman’s. She becomes much popular in the early 1890s alongside leading man John Drew Jr. She also played roles in the plays of J.M. Barrie; some of them are Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows, and Peter Pan. The audience likes her too much in the movies, making Adams the most popular Actress in America. In 1916, she made her final broadway plan, Barrie’s A Kiss for Cinderella. After taking an extended break of 13-year, she appeared in more Shakespeare plays and then starts to tech acting in Missouri. She then retires to upstate New York. 

Early life and career of Adams

Adams was born in Salt lake city, Utah Territory. Adams’s mother was an actress, and her father works in mines and also in banks. Her father died when she was too young.

Maude Adams appeared when she was just two months old at the Salt Lake City Brigham Young Theatre in the play The Lost Baby. She showed again in her mother’s arms in space when she was 9 months old. Adams starts to play roles in stage theaters as a small child, adopting her mother’s maiden name as her stage name. From her young age, she traveled the western U.S. and played different roles in many rural areas, mining towns, and some cities.

Adams debuted in New York at age ten in Esmeralda and then returned to California. At the age of 16, she then appeared in The Paymaster, and after that, she became a member of E.H. Sothern’s theatre company in Boston and become the highest bidder of the theatre. Later in the year 1888 to 1911, she played many iconic roles in many movies. Giving too many hits at that time. In 1911 she appeared in a French Play with the story of a rooster who believes the crowning makes the sunrise.

Later years and Death

Maude Adams retired in 1918 after gaining too much love and popularity. She worked with General Electric during the 1920s to develop improved and more powerful stage lighting for capturing color photography which ultimately became the industry standard in Hollywood. The legendry actress died at her summer home, Saddam Hill, in Tannersville, Newyork, at 80 (July 17, 1953). After her Death, her body was interred in the cemetery of the Sisters of the Cenacle, Lake Ronkonkoma, New York.

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