Viola Tree

Viola Tree (17 July 1884 – 15 November 1938) was an English actress, singer, playwright and author.

Daughter of the actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree, she made many of her early appearances with his company at His Majesty's Theatre.

Tree made her London debut in 1904 as Viola in Twelfth Night, and for the next four years she appeared in her father's productions at His Majesty's Theatre, often in Shakespeare roles.

Her other Shakespeare roles included Hero in Much Ado about Nothing, the Queen in Richard II, Ariel in The Tempest, Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Ophelia in Hamlet and Perdita in The Winter's Tale, in which Ellen Terry played Hermione.

[1] Through the 1930s, Tree continually played in light comedies in the West End, varied with occasional unorthodox undertakings.

[16][17] In 1923 The Dancers, a play written by Tree in collaboration with the actor-manager Gerald du Maurier under the joint pen name of Hubert Parsons, opened at Wyndham's Theatre, starring Tallulah Bankhead in her London début.

[19] She wrote a second play, The Swallow, about decent people coping with the rise of Italian Fascism, produced in London in 1925.