Helen Modjeska

A Woodburytype portrait of the Polish actress Helen Modjeska (1840-1909), seen here in character as the eponymous heroine of Legouvé’s play Adrienne Lecouvreur.

Poland's greatest actress of all time, Helena Modjeska emigrated to Southern California in 1876 with her second husband, Charles Bozenta Chlapowski (known in America as Count Bozenta), and a small group of friends. Their Polish agricultural colony in the little pioneer town of Anaheim was a financial failure in the drought and depression of 1877. Modjeska, however, learned some of the roles in English that had made her famous in Poland and she made a sensational stage debut in San Francisco in August 1877. Additional successes in eastern cities helped launch a notable American dramatic career that was to last for thirty years.

For nine gruelling months each year, she travelled by railroad, steamship, and horse on the strenuous theatrical circuit, accompanied by Bozenta and her acting company. She played not only in the great theatres of New York and London, but also in the makeshift halls and 'opera houses' of rural America. Although she never lost her Polish accent, Modjeska became America's most distinguished Shakespearean actress of the 1880s and 1890s. She played twelve Shakespearean parts in America alone, in addition to other classic and contemporary roles. In 1883 she appeared in America's first professional appearance of Ibsen's A Doll's House. Throughout her American career, Modjeska continued to make periodic voyages home to her native Poland for theatrical tours and to visit her friends and family. The old city theatre in Krakow is now named in her honour.

From 1888 until 1909, Helena Modjeska was a much-loved early resident of Orange County, California. After her death, the north peak of Saddleback Mountain was named Modjeska Peak. The portion of Santiago Canyon in which she and her husband lived is now called Modjeska Canyon.

Photographer unidentified. Published in July 1880