America’s first celebrity was queer but you’ve probably never heard of her

by JOYZEL ACEVEDO

An unfinished portrait of actress Charlotte Cushman (1818-1876) by Thomas Sully that was kept by Anne Hampton Brewster.

In Jezebel’s newest series Rummaging Through the Attic, we interview nonfiction authors whose books explore fascinating moments, characters, and stories in history. For this episode we spoke with Tana Wojczuk, author of Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity, a biography that unearths the life of 1800s American queer icon and actress Charlotte Cushman, who has largely been lost to history until now.

Years ago, author Tana Wojczuk was an aspiring actress. “I played Viola in Twelfth Night,” she recounts. “I remember the sensation of trying to be a man on stage. And it’s not about wearing pants versus a skirt, or what you wear. It’s about a certain kind of freedom in the world, in the way that you move about the world. That made me understand what a performance it was to be female as well.” Inspired to find more women who played men’s roles in the theater, Wojczuk stumbled upon the life of a now-forgotten Charlotte Cushman, an American actress who took the country by storm in the 1800s. “Everybody we know now from that era knew her, or wanted to know her,” says Wojczuk. “Here’s a woman who performed for Queen Victoria, Lincoln, and had the brightest lights of American and British society as her close, intimate friends … Why don’t we know her now? What happened to her and why wasn’t her legacy better preserved?

Cushman was born on July 23, 1816, almost 40 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “It was really the first time that America had the luxury to think about creating their own culture, and think about what that might look like,” says Wojczuk. At her mother’s boarding house, Cushman met actors who discussed their work and life in the theater which, at the time, Wojczuk notes was both extremely popular and very divisive: “[It] was a lightning rod for people who were debating what was sinful, what was entertainment, what was going to teach Americans something. And Charlotte came along right in the middle of all that.”

Cushman took to the stage and shot to stardom, securing her celebrity with her interpretation of Romeo: “She was very daring and brave in her portrayal of Romeo … she challenged what a lot of people saw as a certain kind of masculinity.” Cushman was lauded for the way she portrayed both women and men on stage, competing with famous actors like Edwin Forrest for roles.

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