Fanny Brough

Fanny Brough
Fanny Brough in the 1880s
Born	Frances "Fanny" Whiteside Brough (1852-07-07)July 7, 1852 Paris, France
Died	November 30, 1914(1914-11-30) (aged 62) London, England
Other names	Fanny Boleyn Fanny Bull
Occupation	Stage Actress
Spouse(s)	Richard Smith Boleyn (née Bull)

Frances "Fanny" Whiteside Brough (7 July 1852 – 30 November 1914) was a Paris-born British stage actress who came from a literary and dramatic family. She is remembered especially for her many comedy roles performed over a four decade-long career.

Brough was acting professionally in London by 1870. She played in a variety of comic and dramatic roles in Britain with several companies and toured America early in the 20th century with Charles Hawtrey. Her career reached a high point in 1902 with her creation of the title role of Kitty Warren in George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession. She continued to act until shortly before her death.

Brough was born in Paris, France and Baptized on 23 February 1853 at the Parish Church of St. Peter in Liverpool, England. She was the daughter of Robert Barnabas Brough, a noted journalist, poet and librettist who died a few days prior to her eighth birthday, and his wife Elizabeth, née Romer, a cousin of British soprano Emma Romer, and a sister of singer Ann Romer, wife of her husband’s older brother, writer William Brough. Fanny Brough's father was also the brother of science writer John Cargill Brough and actor-comedian Lionel Brough, a cousin to geologist Robert Brough Smyth and the father of actor/manager Lionel Barnabas Brough (stage name Robert Brough).

Brough's professional stage debut came in 1869 with Charles Calvert’s company at the Prince's Theatre in Manchester, where in March of the following year, she played Ophelia opposite Barry Sullivan’s prince in Hamlet. Her London debut came on 15 October 1870 at the St. James's Theatre playing the title role in Southerland Edwards' adaptation of Sardou’s Fernande. She then played with the Bancrofts in a revival of Money. Brough found success in 1878 as Mary Melrose in provincial road productions of Henry James Byron's Our Boys and as Norah Fitzgerald in Henry Hamilton's 1886 play Harvest staged at London's Princess's Theatre. Brough created the role of Petrella in The Passion Flower; or, Woman and the Law, a drama adapted from the Leopoldo Cano-y-Masas play La Pasionaria, which was originally produced in England as "The Woman and the Law" at the Theatre Royal in Hull on 28 July 1884 and at London's Olympic Theatre on 13 March 1885.