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Hope Hampton
American actress (1897–1982) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mae Elizabeth Hampton (February 19, 1897 – January 23, 1982), known professionally as Hope Hampton, was an American actress and soprano. She was a silent motion picture actress and producer noted for her seemingly effortless incarnation of siren and flapper types in silent-picture roles during the 1920s. She was also an opera singer.[1][2]
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Early life and silent movie career
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The daughter of Ellsworth Kraft Hampton[3] and his wife Evelyn Grace Hampton,[4] Hope Hampton was born in Houston, Texas on February 19, 1897.[5] She was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[6] She attended H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans.[7] There she participated in student productions of plays.[8] Wishing to pursue a career as an actress, she studied drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (then known as the Sargent Dramatic School) in New York City.[8]
Hampton won a newspaper beauty contest in Dallas after one of her friends submitted her photograph to a local paper. The attention from this led to an offer to work in silent films.[8] She first worked for director Maurice Tourneur in a minor uncredited part in Woman (1918).[9] Through Tourneur she met American silent cinema pioneer Jules Brulatour.[7] Brulatour, who was then married to Dorothy Gibson, began an affair with Hope and his marriage to Gibson ended in divorce in 1919.[10] Brulatour was determined to make Hope a star, and founded Hope Hampton Productions to make films with her as his leading actress.[11] Her first leading role in a film with this company was in the title part of A Modern Salome (1920).[7]
She went on to feature prominently in several Brulatour-financed films. In 1923, Hampton and Brulatour wed. They remained married until his death in 1946.[2]
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Soprano
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A lyric soprano,[12] Hampton was trained as an opera singer by voice teachers Pietro Cimini[13] and Estelle Liebling; the latter also the teacher of Beverly Sills.[14] She began her career in light operas while still performing as a film actress.[15] In 1924 she portrayed the title role in the United States premiere of Leo Fall's operetta Madame Pompadour at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia.[16] In 1927 she starred in the title role (aka Minnie Johnson) of Alfred E. Aarons's operetta My Princess at Broadway's Shubert Theatre.[17] She made her grand opera debut with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company (PGOC) on December 21, 1928 in the title role of Jules Massenet's Manon at the Academy of Music;[18] a role which she partially recorded in a 1929 short film made by Vitaphone.[19] She returned to the PGOC in 1929 as Mimì in La bohème with Dimitri Onofrei as Rodolfo, Mary Mellish as Musetta, and Artur Rodziński conducting.[20]
Hampton had critical triumphs as both Manon and Mimì at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in the summer of 1929;[21][22] making her European debut at that theatre on June 21, 1929.[23] In 1930 she appeared as Marguerite in Faust for her first appearance at the Théâtre du Casino Grand-Cercle in Aix-les-Bains,[24] and portrayed Manon at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liege,[25] the Opéra de Vichy,[26] and at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.[27] On September 25, 1930 she sang the role of Marguerite for her debut at the San Francisco Opera.[28] She also performed several roles at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in 1930,[29] and appeared at the Paris Opera in December of that year.[30]
In 1931 Hampton's mother, who had earlier divorced Hope's father and was now married to Harry C. Kennedy, died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[31] In 1933 she performed the title role in Thaïs with the Montreal Grand Opera Company,[32] and appeared as Manon at La Fenice in Venice.[33] She sang Manon at the Boston Opera House in February 1934 with Mario Chamlee as Des Grieux and Mario Valle as Lescaut;[34] repeating the role with the Chicago Grand Opera Company the following December.[35]
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Brief return to film and later life
She returned to the screen in The Road to Reno (1938), a film directed by her husband which co-starred Randolph Scott and Glenda Farrell.
Later she was known as "The Duchess of Park Avenue",[2] a leading member of New York's social set.
In 1978, she was crowned Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball.[36] She presided with King Arthur Tracy.
She died of a heart attack on January 23, 1982 in New York City. She was 84 years old.[2]
Personal life
Hampton and Brulatour took a honeymoon trip to Egypt, there a Sheikh offered Brulatour £10,000 British pounds to buy his wife. Brulatour smiled at the Sheikh and told him that Mrs. Brulatour's jewels were worth more than that.
Brulatour also gave Hope Hampton a 5-story home on Park Avenue (built in 1885 and redesigned in 1921 by Emery Roth). It was listed for $9 million in 2016.[37]
Complete filmography
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References
External links
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