Pauline Hall
American actress
title: "Pauline Hall" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1860-births", "1919-deaths", "american-female-dancers", "american-dancers", "19th-century-american-actresses", "american-stage-actresses", "20th-century-american-actresses", "actresses-from-cincinnati", "american-vaudeville-performers"] description: "American actress" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Hall" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American actress ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Pauline Hall |
| image | Pauline Hall.jpg |
| imagesize | 256 |
| birth_name | Pauline Fredrika Schmidgall |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Cincinnati, Ohio |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Yonkers, New York |
| years_active | 1875–1919 |
| occupation | Actress |
| spouse | Edward R. White (div.) |
| George B. McClellan, Jr. (div.) | |
| :: |
| name = Pauline Hall | image = Pauline Hall.jpg | imagesize = 256 | birth_name = Pauline Fredrika Schmidgall | birth_date = | birth_place = Cincinnati, Ohio | death_date = | death_place = Yonkers, New York | years_active = 1875–1919 | occupation = Actress | spouse = Edward R. White (div.) George B. McClellan, Jr. (div.)
Pauline Hall (born Pauline Fredrika Schmidgall; February 26, 1860 – December 29, 1919) was an American stage actress and singer.
Biography
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Pauline_Hall,from_the_Actors_and_Actresses_series(N45,_Type_1)_for_Virginia_Brights_Cigarettes_MET_DP829546.jpg" caption="Burdick Collection]], [[Metropolitan Museum of Art" alt="Standing woman"] ::
One of the most popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century light opera prima donnas in America, Hall left school at the age of 14 and began her career as a dancer in her native Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1875. Shortly thereafter, Hall joined the Alice Oates Opera Company, leaving it to spend time touring in straight plays with Mary Anderson. By 1880 she was working for Edward E. Rice, who cast her in several of his musical productions, giving her, among others, the trouser role of the hero Gabriel in a revival that year of Evangeline.
Hall continued to be a favorite in comic and light operas around the country until 1890. However, her greatest success came when she played the title role in the first American production of Erminie (1886–1888). She performed Erminie a record-breaking 800 times while on Broadway and touring around the United States, which made her a household name. Hall toured with her own companies from 1890 to 1896, and later entered vaudeville, reportedly earning as much as $600 a week by 1898. In all, she played in over two dozen Broadway operettas. She appeared in revivals of Robin Hood and The Geisha in 1912 and 1913 and in Ziegfeld productions near the end of her career.
Although popular as an actress and singer, Hall was never given good notices by reviewers, who thought she was mediocre. She had an alluring figure, however, and she maintained it until her death in 1919 while playing in David Belasco's The Gold Diggers.
Hall was married to Edward White from 1881 to 1889. She was then married to theatrical manager George B. McLellan (brother of playwright C. M. S. McLellan), from 1894 to 1902; she had a daughter by him in 1895.
Hall died of bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 59, in Yonkers, New York.
References
References
- Browne, Walter and Frederick Arnold Austin. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=xIoXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA120 Who's who on the stage: the dramatic reference book and biographical dictionary of the theatre, Volume 1]'' (1906), p. 120.
- Strang, Lewis Clinton. (1906). "Famous Prima Donnas". [[Louis Coues Page.
- [http://www.the-forum.com/posters/PAULINE.HTM "1880s Theater Poster of Actress Pauline Hall"]. ''the-forum.com''. Retrieved 2010-10-24. {{Webarchive. link. (2010-12-02)
- [http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Hansen&CISOPTR=88&CISOBOX=1&REC=7 "Cabinet Card photograph of Pauline Hall"]. ''uncg.edu''. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
- [https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/12/30/97712124.pdf "Pauline Hall Dies At Yonkers Home"]. ''The New York Times'', December 30, 1919.
- [https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/12/14/104956314.pdf "Back After Eight Years."] ''The New York Times'', December 14, 1910.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::