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Belle Archer (née Mingle;[1] June 5, 1859[2] — September 19, 1900) was an American actress and singer. She was also known as Belle Mackenzie.[3] She was notable for starring in a three-year, cross-country touring production of A Contented Woman and for creating the role of Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore.
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Archer was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of J.L. Mingle,[4] a businessman with Western Union.[5] She grew up in Easton and was educated there.[4] As a youngster, Archer ran away from the Philadelphia Normal School[6] with a friend with the goal of joining a theatrical troupe. She was stopped in Baltimore, however, and taken back to her home.[7]
Before she was 16 years old, Archer debuted on stage in Baltimore under theater manager John T. Ford.[5] In 1879, billed as Belle Mackenzie, "she had created the role of Cousin Hebe" when the comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore premiered in Philadelphia.[8] As early as 1881, she was performing in New York City in the play Won at Last.[9]
In 1882, she was signed to a three-year contract with Madison Square Theatre, with her initial role that of heading the production of Hazel Kirke.[10] Archer became the leading lady for actor Charles H. Hoyt, succeeding his wife, Caroline Miskel Hoyt. She also starred in A Contented Woman,[11] touring the United States for three years in that production, and acted for about two years each with companies headed by E.H. Sothern and Alexander Salvini.[4]
An article in the March 1899 issue of Munsey's Magazine credited Archer with being the first female press agent. "Besides being a clever actress," it said, Miss Archer has the distinction of having opened a new field for woman's work. This was in 1893, when she went in advance of Carrie Turner as press agent."[12]
In 1888, Archer received $1,200 per year from a New York photographer for the right to print photographs of her.[13]
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On September 19, 1880, she married actor H.R. Archer in Norfolk, Virginia.[14] They met when he joined a theatrical company in which she was acting, and they married soon afterward.[15]
On September 19, 1900,[11] Archer died in the Warren, Pennsylvania, emergency hospital following a blood clot on her brain.[5] She was buried in the family plot in Easton Cemetery, Easton, Pennsylvania.[16] The cemetery contains a six-foot-tall stone with "a coin-shaped profile" of Archer.[17] The statue contains the epitaph, "To the name Belle Archer, the master leaning reached a hand and whispered, 'It is finished.'"[17]
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