Hilda Spong
Hilda Spong, was an English-born actress of stage and screen, whose half-century long career was almost entirely in Australia and North America.
Early life
Frances Hilda Spong was born on 14 May 1875, in St. Pancras, London to Walter Spong, a scene painter, and his wife Elizabeth. Her father was born in London, and her mother in Northumberland; she was the second of their five children, and the only girl. During 1886, her father received a job offer from Robert Brough to be the chief scene painter for his theatre company, so the family moved to Melbourne, Australia.Australian and New Zealand stage
Early career
Spong first went on the stage at age fourteen, with the Brough-Boucicault Comedy Company for which her father worked. She appeared in Joseph's Sweetheart, produced by Robert Brough and Dion Boucicault Jr. at the Criterion Theatre in Sydney during July 1889. Adapted by Robert Buchanen from Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, the production with Spong in tow returned in June 1890 to the company's home venue, the Bijou Theatre in Melbourne.By September 1890, Spong was performing in her second and third plays, The Parvenu and School. For a revival of Sophia in July 1891, she received her first accolade: "...Miss Hilda Spong, who is the prettiest, the most graceful, and the most promising of debutantes. She has everything to learn, but nothing to unlearn, and she made poor Molly quite a hit." Spong, now 16, took over a role in Led Astray when the regular actress was absent in December 1891. Later that same month, she had her first Shakespearean role, as Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing.
Spong had her first large dramatic part in May 1892, at the Princess Theatre production of Jo, adapted by J. P. Burnett from Charles Dickens Bleak House. Spong played Esther, the book's heroine but a featured role in this play, which starred Burnett's wife Jennie Lee as the title character. In June she moved with her mother to the South Yarra neighborhood of Melbourne, and a month later signed with George Rignold's troupe. She was cast as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, wearing tights designed by her father. This was followed by a part in the Australian premiere of Ludwig Fulda's The Lost Paradise during September 1892.
Leading player
The English Rose at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, in November 1892, saw Spong playing the title role. The Sydney Morning Herald reviewer said she played the love scenes well but lacked a strong stage presence in the more dramatic moments. However, they were impressed with her improvement as the female lead in London Day by Day during late January 1893. Spong, called "a rising young star", received a new lead contract from George Rignold in February 1893. She was next cast in East Lynne, followed by It Is Never Too Late to Mend, both during May 1893.Starting in July 1893, Spong was engaged by J. C. Williamson and George Musgrove to play "juveniles" for Edward O'Connor Terry's season in Australia. The first play up was Sweet Lavender, where Spong "proved an engaging and ingenuous Lavender, and acted with simplicity and tender directness". Artist Tom Roberts did a life-sized oil painting of Spong that was exhibited by the Art Society of New South Wales in August 1893. By October 1893, Spong had returned to George Rignold's company in Sydney with In the Ranks.
New Zealand tour
Spong continued performing with Rignold's Sydney company until January 1894, when her father and actor-manager Walter Howe formed a company for a tour of New Zealand. Her father went as scenic designer for the Howe and Spong Dramatic Company, while Hilda Spong was the leading lady. Their first production was Harbour Lights, at the Princess's Theatre in Dunedin, on 17 February 1894. The local reviewer said Spong "proved herself to be a capable and intelligent actress". Spong was accorded special billing in advertisements; her name was the only one in all caps for cast lists. The culmination of her Dunedin stay was a one-night performance as Rosalind for As You Like It, performed under the sponsorship of the Dunedin Shakespeare Society and University of Otago.Following Dunedin, the tour went to Oamaru for two days, then played Timaru, and Christchurch. The tour left for the North Island, opening in Wellington on 2 April 1894. Throughout its New Zealand tour, the Howe-Spong company played the same seven works it had presented in Dunedin. After three weeks, the tour continued to Wanganui, Napier, and Auckland.
Return to Australia
The Howe-Spong Company carried its same repertoire to Newcastle, New South Wales upon its return to Australia in late May 1894. However, Spong and her father then moved to Sydney, where W. B. Spong leased the shuttered Criterion Theatre for the season. Hilda Spong headlined the opening as Rosalind in As You Like It, on 23 June 1894. This was a more complete version than that performed on tour, with new scenery by Spong's father and original incidental music by Consterdine. A local reviewer pronounced it "a triumphant success" for Hilda Spong. This was followed by productions of An Unequal Match by Tom Taylor, Pygmalion and Galatea and Pinero's The Money Spinner.Spong joined the Bland Holt Company for her first tour to Queensland, starting with Brisbane. She performed there as an unscrupulous adventuress in A Million of Money beginning 6 October 1894, followed by a woman wronged in Henry Pettitt's A Woman's Revenge. Spong had just finished the Brisbane engagement with Round the Ring, when a four-wheeled cart she was riding in overturned on an banked road in Bowen Hills, Queensland, injuring her ankle and delaying her return to Sydney. When the Bland Holt Company visited Newcastle, a local paper said: "Miss Spong is not yet 20 years of age, but is tall and of an imposing appearance. She has a handsome, classical face, and a rich sympathetic voice...", and added "Naturally she is anxious to try her fortune in London".
UK stage
Spong travelled with her mother to England in August 1896 for a part in The Duchess of Coolgardie. This melodrama was produced by John Coleman, who The Times implied may also have written it. It ran for two months, after which Spong went into a short-lived flop called The Kiss of Delilah, where the reviewer pronounced her performance "curiously uneven". She then replaced another actress in an ongoing production of Two Little Vagabonds to a much better review. This production ran through the end of May 1897, after which The Era reported she had rented a houseboat on the Thames for a vacation.By September 1897, The People remarked that she had not been on stage since Two Little Vagabonds ended. Later that month she signed with Arthur Chudleigh and Dion Boucicault for a series of comedies to be played at the Royal Court Theatre. The first was a modern German fairy-tale called The Children of the King, which had incidental music by Engelbert Humperdinck. The Standard said the music "is interwoven with the text" in a unique way, and Spong "acquitted herself of a trying part with distinction". Her next performance would be a breakthrough role for her, as Imogen Parrott in Trelawny of the 'Wells'. This A. W. Pinero play was a pointed satire of the English stage scene of the 1860s, the decline of stock companies. It was as celebrated for its costumes as its characters. Among the performers was a first-time actor, billed as James Erskine, who was the notorious Earl of Rosslyn.
North American stage
The Frohman brothers
The Frohman brothers made annual trips to Europe, picking up the North American rights to plays, and looking for talent to perform them. During one such trip to England in September 1898, Daniel Frohman acquired rights to Trelawny of the 'Wells, then decided to recruit Hilda Spong to reprise her role. He asked her parents, who were managing her career, how much money it would take to bring her to America. Not wishing to leave England again so soon, they named an impossible figure, but were astonished when Frohman agreed. He signed Spong to a managerial contract and brought her to America in November 1898.The American premiere of Trelawny of the 'Wells starred another English actress, Mary Mannering, in the title role, but Spong drew the audience's attention with her outlandish retro fashions and charming mannerisms. The play carried no satirical overtones in America, where the audience was oblivious to the disguised references to real plays and actors. Spong now joined Mannering as the leading women for Daniel Frohman's Comedy Company, which specialized in playing adaptations of English and French comedies. Given the repertoire involved, having English-born actresses to play leads was an advantage to the company. Their home venue was at first the old Lyceum Theatre, and later Daly's Theatre.
The first sequin dress worn on the stage was designed by Mrs. Robert Osborne for Hilda Spong's character in Wheels Within Wheels during December 1899. The gown was so unprecedented, one reviewer could only describe it as "steel embroidery". Spong would stay with Daniel Frohman after Mannering left, during which perhaps her most successful play was the American adaptation of Lady Huntworth's Experiment. This comedy by R. C. Carton had Spong play an aristocratic divorcee, who decides to secretly resume her maiden name to become a chef in a vicarage.
In June 1902 newspapers reported Charles Frohman had engaged Spong to support Virginia Harned in Iris for the Fall, and shortly after that it was definite she was not returning to Daniel Frohman's Comedy Company. Bertha Galland replaced her as Esmeralda in the road company of Notre Dame. The reason for this switch in managers, according to one drama critic, was the delay in building the new Lyceum Theatre, leaving Daniel Frohman's company without a Broadway venue. The new Pinero play Iris had its American premiere on Broadway during September 1902, with Spong in an inconsequential role.
Her next two plays under Charles Frohman were leading parts but in weak efforts: the melodrama Imprudence where she played an adulteress, and the ill-fated Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner. Not until the revival Lord and Lady Algy and Joseph Entangled in 1904 did she start getting good roles from Charles Frohman. Other strong parts under his management were The Firm of Cunningham in 1905, where a critic said "Miss Spong plays with familiar ease, dash, and spirit" in this Willis Steell play, and The American Lord in 1906, a four-act comedy by Charles Dazey and George Broadhurst which had Spong as an Irish widow.