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Laura Keene was born Mary Frances Moss in Winchester, England. By the time she was 18 years old, she had married Henry Wellington Taylor. They had two children: Emma (born in 1846) and Clara Marie Stella (born in 1849). Taylor was a British officer, and after he was discharged from the army he opened a tavern. However, for unknown reasons, Taylor was arrested and sent to Australia (then a British penal colony). With very few options for her future, Keene apprenticed at her aunt’s London theatre.

For respectability, because she was a young woman working in the theatre, Keene sent her daughters to live with her mother and took on the professional name of “Laura Keene.� She was an early success on the London stage, and at her aunt’s urging, Keene relocated to the United States in 1852. She attempted to divorce Taylor while he was still in Australia, but he never consented, and so they stayed married until he died. In 1860, she remarried John Lutz, a wealthy financier of her theatre business. As she was building a successful career, Keene’s daughters joined her--eventually performing and managing alongside their mother. Over the course of 20 years Laura Keene had a remarkable professional life of acting, directing, producing, and managing. She died of tuberculosis in 1873 at only 47 years old.

Key Dates & Events

• 1851 - Keene debuts at the Olympic Theatre in London under the tutelage of Madame Vestris
• 1853 - Keene leases the Charles Street Theatre in Baltimore and soon begins touring with her theatre company
• 1855 - In New York City, Keene creates Laura Keene's Varieties in the Metropolitan Theatre
• 1865 - Keene performs at Ford's Theatre in Our American Cousin in a benefit performance on April 14, the night of President Lincoln's assassination
• 1872 - Keene publishes the first issue of The Fine Arts