"Leading lady" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, because Broadway had often done the same thing to Miss D'Armande. Still, the "tats" seemed to have it, for the ex-leading lady of the "Reaping the Whirlwind" company had everything to ask of Broadway, while there ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... the satisfaction derived from the revelation of amateur foibles, for here we are laughing at ourselves, as in A Pantomime Rehearsal. In The Show Shop this element was supplied by a young plutocrat who took a small part with a travelling company in order to be near his fiancee, the leading lady; and continued in it as jeune premier because she refused to be made love to on the stage by anybody else. In assuming a role for which he was incredibly ill-qualified he seemed likely to facilitate the achievement of his purpose, namely to make the play a hopeless failure and so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... to make a fine thing out of acting now for three years, ever since I was little more than a child—a real child in the little I knew. And if I had not minded certain things of course by now I could have been a leading lady and driven in my brougham, or left the stage for good—or for bad. But one cannot alter the way one is made, or drop the ideas one was brought up to have ... at least I can't; and so I'm still in the attic in Cecil Street, with a small part and no prospects. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... came back and gathered in a half-circle around him. "We'll rehearse the first act to-night with the principals. You six girls are supposed to be young millionairesses, very up-to-date-bachelor-girl type, intimate friends of the leading lady, who is a multi-millionairess that's run away from home. You've all got a few lines to say. Go to Mr. Quan and get your parts and have them up ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance of the male chorus, the leading lady was to ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... quiet little girl, and smiled rather shyly as we shook hands. She sat down beside Mrs. Ascher and refused the cigarette which was offered her. She did not in the least correspond to my idea of what a leading lady in a popular play should be. However I had not much opportunity just then of forming an opinion of her. Gorman, having settled the two ladies, took Ascher and me to the far end of the ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... wet breeze was blowing on the line; or she was far away, drifting in vague realms where feelings entirely strange to this bare little mining camp, and this hungry, busy, commonplace man, held sway. Cherry was in the position of a leading lady mysteriously forced into a minor role; she had never known what she wanted in life, and was learning now in a ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... at rehearsal the leading lady said: "If my lute-player could play a few chords here—or the orchestra for him-it would help me tremendously. I've got all this long cross ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... to you, Mrs. Elliot, for a stage manager," he whispered, glancing at the other women. "A black-haired soubrette, a brown pony, and a redheaded slip; no rivals to the leading lady in ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... "Our new leading lady, Miss Jessie Bain," he announced, briefly; adding quickly after this general introduction: "Clear the stage every one who is not discovered ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... groups, that would suddenly disintegrate as if by an access of centrifugal force; crowding each other jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into the patches of bog, snuffing greedily at the orange stems of the bracken. Soon, reiterated squeals from a leading lady told that the clue was found again, and they began to run, hard as before, but downwards this time, as though the fox despaired of finding refuge among the high places of heather and rock. Larry had lost his bearings; his eyes on the hounds, his thoughts on his horse, he had not even tried ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of which we have any knowledge took place in January 1790, when a farce called The Sultan[50] was acted. The leading lady on this last occasion was Miss Cooper, who spoke the epilogue in the character of Roxalana, Henry Austen playing the title-role. On the same occasion Townley's farce, High Life below Stairs, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... first gentleman of the bedchamber, or of a prince of the blood, would not be enough to secure a turn of favor; the actors only make concessions to those who threaten their self-love. If it is in your power to spread a report that the jeune premier has the asthma, the leading lady a fistula where you please, and the soubrette has foul breath, then your piece would be played to-morrow. I do not know whether in two years' time, I who speak to you now, shall be in a position to exercise such power. You need ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... villain. "Eleanor is leading lady, of course. She has three different costumes, and she looks like a queen in every one of them. Katherine is going to be Sherlock Holmes, and Adelaide Rich is Dr. Watson and—oh, I mustn't tell you any more, or Alice won't ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... The "leading lady" was at the present moment dreaming of a golden future in her own rooms at the "Banker's Folly." Nadine Johnstone had been allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as her ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... too lovely," she asked, "and doesn't he know how to do it?" Dashwood had the sense of costume even more than Peter had inferred or supposed he minded, inasmuch as it now appeared he had gone profoundly into the question of what the leading lady was to wear. He had drawn patterns and hunted up stuffs, had helped her to try on her clothes, had bristled with ideas and pins. It would not have been quite clear, Peter's ground for resenting Nash's cynical absence; it may ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Club ranks. Norma especially proved to be a find, and she was given the hero's part after the first rehearsal while Alice was the heroine's mother. Betty, much to her surprise, was posted on the bulletin board as the "leading lady." ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... Elizabeth Seven. The movie producers had talked about hiring her as Frank's leading lady until they found out about a new line of female robots that had just gone on the market. When they screen-tested the whole series and picked a lovely Mylar rationaloid named Diana Twelve, it hit Elizabeth pretty hard. She ...
— The Love of Frank Nineteen • David Carpenter Knight
... surroundings. His rendition of the role of Haxard was magnificent in one journal, grand in another, superb in a third, rich, full and satisfying in a fourth, subtle and conscientious in a fifth. Beyond this, the critics ceased to be so much of one mind. They were, by a casting vote, adverse to the leading lady, whom the majority decided an inadequate Salome, without those great qualities which the author had evidently meant to redeem a certain coquettish lightness in her; the minority held that she had grasped the role with intelligence, and expressed ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... have been expected, the members of the company with true Gallic chivalry made up the large amount necessary to carry her across, bring her back and provide in the interim for the afflicted children. This was Pauline's opportunity; she naturally succeeded to the position of leading lady, and kept it until her faults of temper developed and she had the pleasurable excitement of a fierce quarrel with her manager. Thus, while her talent was conceded, her stormy temperament prevented her achieving anything like permanent ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... a very good speech. She knew it must be because she had heard a high-priced leading lady utter it in ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... the illogical feeling of the lamented critic, difficulties arise. We have grown very velvet-tongued in these days. There was no nonsense about our predecessors; if the leading lady was plain, they said so, whilst if one of us were to suggest that the heroine, whose beauty is talked of tiresomely during the play, in real life might sit in unflattering safety under mistletoe till the berries shrivelled he would be regarded as an ungentle ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... L'Ete.—Leading lady and opposite gentleman advance and retire; chassez to right and left; cross over to each other's places; chassez to right and left. Balancez and turn partners. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... whispered Nora to Grace. "She's so angry she can't see straight. She must have wanted to play Rosalind herself. I told you she'd sulk if she couldn't be the leading lady." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... you might call the leading lady in the Forest Queen dance-hall, the Sage-Brush Hen was; and if you wanted fun, and had to choose between her and a basket of monkeys, all I've got to say is—nobody'd ever a-took the monkeys who knowed the Hen! That girl was up to more queer tricks than anybody of her size and shape—she had a powerful ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... need have no fear on that score, Mr. Underwood," Walcott remarked, with a smile of amusement; "I believe Miss Underwood is entirely capable of carrying out to perfection any role she may assume, and if she chooses to take the part of leading lady in the little comedy of 'The Model Husband and Wife, I shall be only too delighted to render her ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... to Pavilion Hill to find the boarders like the chorus in light opera very picturesque in summer dresses and summer flannels, and with Mrs. Paine in a broad hat playing the part of leading lady. Mr. Flippin, who was high-priest at all of the county barbecues, was superintending the roasting of a whole pig, and Mrs. Flippin had her mind on hot biscuits. The young mulatto, Daisy, and Mandy's ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... want of presence among the ladies of Burgos, in the leading lady of the theatrical company who dined, the night before, at our hotel with the chief actors of her support, before giving a last performance in our ancient city. It happened another time in our Spanish progress that we had the society of strolling players at our hotel, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... dramatique "at the wing." Otherwise than as a sign of dramatic destitution, the piece called "Behind the Scenes" is highly amusing. Mr. Wild's acting displays that happy medium between jocularity and earnest, which is the perfection of burlesque. Mrs. Selby plays the "leading lady" without the smallest effort, and invites the first tragedian to her treat of oysters and beer with considerable empressement, though supposed to be labouring at the time under the stroke of the headsman's axe. Lastly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... our concert party gave a performance in the theatre. We were very proud of them. The men's costumes were well made and very tasteful. "Babs," our leading lady, was most charming and engaging, in spite of the fact that her hands looked decidedly masculine. The townspeople enjoyed the entertainments as much as we did, and the battalions were given their own special nights. Occasionally, some of the jokes appeared to me a ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... in opening the ring performance and for a very good reason. In the dressing tent Giles Frozzler was having great difficulty in persuading his leading lady rider and his clown to go on. Both wanted their pay for the past ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... the patient little plodder had found in her occupation only the sordid satisfaction of drawing her wages, but now the resplendent costumes, the tragedy in the gestures of the villain, the languid grace of Lord Algernon, and the haughty treble of the leading lady struck the spark that fired ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... the late Sir James. Besides these, there was only myself, Montagu Lane; and I believed that the dinner had been arranged with a view to my claims as leading man in the love drama of which Helen Blantock was leading lady, the other characters in the scene merely being "on" as our "support." If this idea argued conceit, I ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... have been wiser if I had stuck to the profession," Poppy commented to herself. "I should have been a leading lady by now, drawing my thirty to forty pounds a week. I had the root of the matter in me. Have it still, worse luck; for it's the sort of root which asserts its continued existence by aching at times like that of a broken tooth. It was a wrench ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... title of the thing, but 'Darling, Will You Meet Me In The Centre Of The Circle That The Limelight Makes Upon The Floor, Tiddle-e-yum?' would meet the case. We have Musical Comedy now in place of what used to be Burlesque in your London days, Saxham, with a Leading Lady instead of a Principal Boy, and a Chorus in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... give you a ticket to 'The Leopardess.' She is acting the title part. She is my leading lady and a very extraordinary young actress. Of course, it's none of my business, but in a way I ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... for any more money. So I went to the manager and got a chance to be in the mob—that's the crowd that don't have speaking parts, you know. And the people who'd promised to take me home forgot and went off to supper without me, and the leading lady heard about it and took me home in her carriage. So mother asked her to tea, and she came, and was a dear, though she couldn't act at all. I forget her name. But the family wouldn't let me go on again. They said it wouldn't ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... want to extract anything from the mercantile community of Calcutta in advance," she said. "It would be most unbusinesslike. Stanhope has been equal to bringing us out; but I quite see myself, as leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of the season. Then I think," she said with defiance, "that ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... had one crowd out here last year. They stayed around about six weeks taking some sort of a drama, as they called it. It was funny," added the foreman, with a chuckle. "The leading lady was scared to death of horses, and yet she had to do a little riding. The man who was having the pictures taken wanted her to smile while she was cantering along. But that smile, believe me, wasn't anything to brag about. They ought to ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... was well-meant, and held within its simple story a deep truth, the incongruities of it, chiefly those contributed by the childish actors, might have made the dialogue extremely laughable had it not been for the acting of the leading lady. Elizabeth proved a star from the moment she set foot upon the stage. She was radiantly happy there. All unconsciously she had found a method of complete self-expression that was not forbidden, and the joy and ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... everybody knew they were twins, and there was no use denying it now. A green and black plaid was bought to make Mary a new Sunday dress, and a red and black plaid for "days." Pearl knew that when Mary was telling a story to the boys she always clothed her leading lady in plaid, and from this she inferred how Mary's tastes ran! Stockings and shoes were selected, and an assortment of underclothes, towels, toques, scarfs, and ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... Wasn't Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband when he had such a fascinating beauty for his leading lady?" ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... impulse toward the stage. But her family refused to permit her to become an actress, and it was not until after her marriage that her chance came. Her husband consented to a few trial appearances, and her success was so great that she was soon engaged as leading lady for the theatre ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... profession goes so far, that often absolute fakes are sent out to the poor, unsuspecting editor. Here is a statement that was printed, let us hope in good faith, in one of the Brooklyn papers not long ago. It referred to the leading lady in a ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... of Crowd Picture is The Battle, an old Griffith Biograph, first issued in 1911, before Griffith's name or that of any actor in films was advertised. Blanche Sweet is the leading lady, and Charles H. West the leading man. The psychology of a bevy of village lovers is conveyed in a lively sweet-hearting dance. Then the boy and his comrades go forth to war. The lines pass between hand-waving crowds of friends from the entire neighborhood. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... comparatively simple matter on the basis of mere doubt; but the ground to be covered was now greatly larger, and she felt not unlike some young woman of the theatre who, engaged for a minor part in the play and having mastered her cues with anxious effort, should find herself suddenly promoted to leading lady and expected to appear in every act of the five. She had made much to her husband, that last night, of her "knowing"; but it was exactly this quantity she now knew that, from the moment she could only dissimulate it, added to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... she replied. "I've got to learn a new part in an old play." She flourished the script airily. "I have just accepted an engagement as leading lady." ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... chance to rival the great performers who have gone before, leaving only their fame behind them. So it is that the 'Pillars of Society' is set up in our theaters now and again, and that 'Ghosts' may revisit our stage from time to time. So it is that the ambitious leading lady, abandoning the Camille and the Pauline of a generation or two ago, yearns now to show what she can do as Nora and as Hedda Gabler, unable to resist the temptation to try her luck also in impersonating ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... worshipped her at a distance, but his shyness prevented him from proposing. Then, one evening, for the sake of sweet charity, a theatrical performance took place, in which the charmer was leading lady and more adorable than ever. Afterward the shy admirer drew near, his love made valiant by the sight of her beauty. "You are the star of the evening," he said as they stood alone ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... had Dr. Biggs call since you were here," she told him, assuming the pose which a certain Broadway favorite had discovered (the photograph of the leading lady in this particular pose had been cut from the latest theatrical gazette which now lay upon the sitting-room table; it is denied us to enter the room set aside for Miss Jocelyn to see if the picture be pinned to the wall over her dresser!)—a pose which was not lost to the appreciative ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... house was darkened and the curtain rose. The play was "The Sword of the King," a drama that seemed to Martie well suited to her own exalted mood. She thought the whole company wonderful, the leading lady especially gifted. She learned with awe that Rodney had known Wallace Bannister, the leading man, more or less intimately for years. An aunt of his lived in Pittsville and the two had met as boys and later had been classmates ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... with me so far in my life will realize that Kate Terry was much better known than Ellen at the time of Ellen's first retirement from the stage. From Bristol my sister had gone to London to become Fechter's "leading lady," and from that time until she made her last appearance in 1867 as Juliet at the Adelphi, her career was a ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... plot of the comedy got lost after the first ten minutes and was never recovered until the last two. It was amusing to watch men try to act like women, and two of the "ladies" of the chorus were patently drunk. Cleopatra, the leading lady, was a wrestler and looked it, his biceps swelling magnificently every time he raised his arms to embrace the comic Antony. It was glorious nonsense badly enough done to be really funny. Hugh and Cynthia, along with the ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks |
