1. Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden, known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American actress and stage designer who achieved her greatest success as the character Peter Pan, first playing the role in the 1905 Broadway production of Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
Maude Adams began performing as a child while accompanying her actress mother on tour.
Maude Adams was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, the daughter of Asaneth Ann "Annie" and James Henry Kiskadden.
Maude Adams's mother was an actress, and her father had jobs working for a bank and in a mine.
James was not a Mormon, and Maude Adams once wrote of her father as having been a "gentile".
Maude Adams appeared on stage at two months old in the play The Lost Baby at the Salt Lake City Brigham Young Theatre.
Maude Adams appeared again at the age of nine months in her mother's arms.
Over her father's objections, Maude Adams began acting as a small child, adopting her mother's maiden name as her stage name.
At the age of five, Maude Adams starred in a San Francisco theater as "Little Schneider" in Fritz, Our German Cousin and as "Adrienne Renaud" in A Celebrated Case.
At the age of nine, Maude Adams lived with her Mormon grandmother and Mormon cousins in Salt Lake City while her mother remained in San Francisco.
Maude Adams was never baptized as a Presbyterian, although she attended a Presbyterian school.
Later in life, Maude Adams took long sabbaticals in Catholic convents, and in 1922 she donated her estates in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, to the Sisters of the Cenacle for use as a novitiate and retreat house.
Maude Adams never converted to Catholicism or discussed the topic in any interviews.
Maude Adams debuted in New York at the age of ten in Esmeralda and then returned briefly to California.
Maude Adams then returned to Salt Lake City to live with her grandmother and studied at the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute.
Maude Adams returned to New York City at the age of 16 to appear in The Paymaster.
In 1889, sensing he had a potential new star on his hands, Hoyt offered her a five-year contract, but Maude Adams declined in favor of a lesser offer from the powerful producer Charles Frohman who, from that point forward, took control of her career.
Maude Adams soon left behind juvenile parts and began to play leading roles for Frohman, often alongside her mother.
Frohman paired Maude Adams and Drew in a series of plays beginning with The Masked Ball and ending with Rosemary in 1896.
Maude Adams then spent five years as the leading lady in John Drew's company.
Maude Adams was the first actress to play Peter Pan on Broadway.
Only days after her casting was announced, Maude Adams had an emergency appendectomy, and it was uncertain whether her health would allow her to assume the role as planned.
Maude Adams appeared in the role on Broadway several times over the following decade.
Maude Adams starred in other works by Barrie, including Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows, The Legend of Leonora and A Kiss for Cinderella.
The critic Alan Dale, reviewing her debut in the role at the Empire Theatre, called her Elizabethan English "grotesque at times" and commented that Maude Adams had performed with "pretty purring", not classical.
Romeo and Juliet was followed by L'Aiglon in 1900, a French play about the life of Napoleon II of France in which Maude Adams played the leading role, foreshadowing her portrayal of another male five years later.
The play had starred Sarah Bernhardt in Paris with enthusiastic reviews, but Maude Adams's L'Aiglon received mixed reviews in New York.
Miss Maude Adams was accorded an ovation at the end of the performance.
Maude Adams appeared in another French play with 1911's Chantecler, the story of a rooster who believes his crowing makes the sun rise.
Maude Adams fared only slightly better than in L'Aiglon with the critics, but audiences again embraced her, on one occasion giving her 22 curtain calls.
Maude Adams later cited it as her favorite role, with Peter Pan a close second.
Maude Adams retired in 1918 after a severe bout of influenza.
Maude Adams's retiring lifestyle, including the absence of any relationships with men, contributed to the virtuous and innocent public image promoted by Frohman and was reflected in her most successful roles.
Maude Adams had two long-term relationships that ended upon her partners' deaths: Lillie Florence, from the early 1890s until 1901, and Louise Boynton from 1905 until 1951.
Maude Adams was known to sometimes supplement fellow performers' salaries from her own pay.
Once, while she was touring, a theater owner significantly raised the price of tickets, knowing Maude Adams's name meant a sold-out house.
Maude Adams made the owner refund the difference before she appeared on the stage that night.
Maude Adams was the head of the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1949, becoming known as an inspiring acting teacher.
Maude Adams died, aged 80, at her summer home, Caddam Hill, in Tannersville, New York, and is interred in the cemetery of the Sisters of the Cenacle, Lake Ronkonkoma, New York.