Anne Hartley Gilbert

At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet school connected with Her Majesty's Theatre, in the Haymarket, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer.

[citation needed] Mrs Gilbert's first success in a speaking part was in 1857 as Wichavenda in John Brougham's Po-ca-hon-tas.

[1] One of the most brilliant and decisive successes of her professional life was gained at the Broadway Theatre[2] where, on 5 August 1867, Mr and Mrs W. J. Florence presented Thomas William Robertson's comedy Caste, for the first time in America.

On 24 October 1904, at the New Lyceum Theatre, Mrs Gilbert made her first appearance as a star, being then in the eighty-second year of her age, in a play, by Clyde Fitch, called Granny with a young Marie Doro in one of her earliest roles.

Granny was announced as her farewell role and she read a special poem composed by Fitch at the end of each performance.