Julia Marlowe (born Sarah Frances Frost; August 17, 1865[1][2] – November 12, 1950) was an English-born American actress, known for her interpretations of William Shakespeare's plays.

Her father, who was an avid fan of local sports, "fled to America in 1870 under the erroneous impression that he had destroyed a neighbour's eye by flicking a whip at him during a race.

Marlowe obtained the nickname of "Fanny" and in her early teens began her career in the chorus of a juvenile opera company.

Still in Cincinnati, Fanny played her first Shakespearean roles as Balthazar in Romeo and Juliet and as Maria in Twelfth Night.

Soon after, Ada Dow took Fanny to New York where for several years she received voice training by Parsons Price.

Colonel Miles, the new manager of the New York Bijou Opera House, gave her the opportunity to play for two weeks on tour in New England, starting in New London, Connecticut.

On 20 October 1887, her mother hired the Bijou for a matinee of Ingomar the Barbarian (Maria Lovell's adaptation of Friedrich Halm's Der Sohn der Wildnis),[6] in which Marlowe received acclaim[7] which served as a stepping stone to Broadway.In early 1891, Marlowe came down with a severe case of typhoid fever while on tour in Philadelphia.

Had this measure not been taken, she would never have been performing on Broadway by 1895 and would never have established herself as the leading American actress of Shakespeare in her day alongside actor E. H.

[13] In 1901, and in a subsequent 1904 revival, Marlowe starred as Mary Tudor in Paul Kester's adaptation of When Knighthood Was in Flower.

Other hits for Marlowe followed, including Charlotte Oliver in the adaptation[16] by Kester and Middleton of George Washington Cable's The Cavalier, and Ingomar, both in 1903.

Of her performance in the latter, The New York Sun wrote, "There is not a woman player in America or in England that is – attractively considered – fit to unlace her shoe".

[17] In 1904, she began an extremely successful partnership with actor E. H. Sothern, beginning with their appearances in the title roles in Romeo and Juliet, Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and the leads in Hamlet.

In 1906, together with Sothern, she played the title character in Percy MacKaye's Jeanne d'Arc, Salome in Sudermann's John the Baptist and Rautendelein in The Sunken Bell, receiving favorable reviews.