Isabelle Urquhart

Isabelle Urquhart (December 9, 1865 – February 7, 1907), also known as Belle Urquhart, was an American contralto and actress, noted for her performances in comic opera and musical comedy.

Born in New York City, Urquhart ran away from convent school to become a chorus girl. By 1881, she was performing chorus roles with the Richard D'Oyly Carte and E. E. Rice opera companies in America. She moved up to small roles with Augustin Daly's company from 1882 to 1883 and joined the H. M. Pitts comedy company for three London theatrical seasons, starting in 1883, while performing in New York City between those seasons.^[a] By this time, she was playing principal roles in Victorian burlesque. In 1886, Urquhart played leading roles in Shakespeare and other dramas at the Globe Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, but she reluctantly returned to comic opera in New York, where she played smaller roles that paid better.

Her first major role was Cerise in the hit musical Erminie, which ran from 1886 to 1888 at the Casino Theatre. She was noted for her impressive figure, and her fashion choices were admired by men and imitated by women. The Erminie role was followed by lead roles in other comic operas in New York City where she had become "one of the reigning queens of comic opera".^[3] She appeared in vaudeville in the late 1890s. By 1900, she ran her own touring company and later took further roles in New York. By this decade, she was starring as older characters, earning strong notices. In 1906, she appeared in Broadway revivals of George Bernard Shaw's comedies Arms and the Man and How He Lied to Her Husband. The latter was her final role.

Urquhart was a popular model for cabinet cards that were distributed as a promotional incentive with cigarettes and other tobacco products. She was married to English actor Guy Standing from 1893 to 1899. She died of peritonitis in 1907 at the age of 41.

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