Constance Benson

Gertrude Constance Cockburn Benson ( Samwell; 26 February 1864 – 19 January 1946) was a British stage and film actress. Before her marriage to Frank Benson, she was known by the stage name Constance Featherstonhaugh, pronounced "Fanshaw". Biography Born in British India into a military family, and christened Gertrude Constance Cockburn Samwell, she took to the stage under the name of Featherstonhaugh, which was the middle name of her father, Morshead Featherstonhaugh Samwell. She married the actor Frank Benson on 24 July 1886, and they had two children, Eric William (1887–1916), killed at the battle of the Somme, and Brynhild Lucy (1888–1974). When Benson played Cleopatra in 1898, reviewers were astonished by her "terrible rage", one commenting that she treated a struck-down messenger so violently that only the intervention of Charmian had saved his life. One critic later claimed that "Benson and his companies never shook off the aura of amateurism", and that some of the parts Constance Benson had played "owed more to her husband's loyalty than to her talent". As an actress, Constance Benson worked in the theatre. Still in 1911 she also appeared in leading roles in four silent films, all adaptations of William Shakespeare plays: Richard III, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Taming of the Shrew.