Henrietta Hodson

Henrietta Ellen Hodson (26 March 1841 – 30 October 1910) was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era.

About 1868, she moved in with Henry Labouchère,[8] a member of parliament and later a journalist and playwright, who was one of the founders of Queen's Theatre, but they could not marry until years later when her first husband died.

In addition to roles in other Byron pieces, she acted at Queen's in various extravaganzas and burlesques, including La Vivandière by W. S. Gilbert, The Stranger by Robert Reece, The Gnome King by William Brough, the successful The Turn of the Tide by F. C. Burnand, and Twixt Axe and Crown by Tom Taylor.

Also in 1871, she played Lady Amaranth in John O'Keefe's Wild Oats, followed by such roles as Nydia the blind girl in John Oxenford's version of Lord Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1872), Dick Wastrell in Old London, adapted from Les Chevaliers du Brouillard (1873; a French dramatisation of Jack Sheppard), and Jane Theobald in Gilbert's Ought We to Visit Her?

Gilbert did not wish to cast her, but under her contract with the Haymarket, she insisted on taking the role and again threatened legal action.

When he told her that she had no case, she instead complained of Gilbert's "persecution" of her and criticised his demanding directing methods in a pamphlet-letter circulated among theatre professionals.

[12][13] In 1878, Hodson returned to Queen's Theatre as Dolores, Countess Rysoor, in Labouchère's Fatherland, an adaptation of Victorien Sardou's Patrie!.

She retired from acting soon afterwards and lived in comfort at Alexander Pope's Villa at Cross Deep Twickenham, near London, with Labouchère.

However, in 1881, she tutored and mentored Lillie Langtry in her early stage work, and they appeared together in the comedy two-hander called A Fair Encounter.

Her daughter, Mary Dorothea, married Carlo Emanuele Starabba, 2nd Marchese di Rudinì (the son of Antonio Starabba, Marchese di Rudinì, prime minister of Italy) in 1903, then the Prince Gyalma Odescalchi De Szerem, and finally Don Eugenio Ruspoli.