The Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston, West Virginia, October 30, 1933:
E. H. Sothern is Taken By Death
Shakespearean Actor Dies in New York After a Short Illness
New York, Oct. 30- (AP)
The last rites for E. H. Sothern, who devoted a lifetime to audiences will be performed without one. Broadway celebrities anxious to do honor to the memory of the street's great romantic actor would have filled Manhattan's largest church but Julia Marlowe has decreed otherwise.
After the news of the 73-year-old actor's death from pneumonia on Saturday was made public yesterday, his wife announced that the services would be private, attended only by herself and intimate friends. Even the time and place of the funeral was withheld. The body will be cremated.
When Mr. Sothern retired in 1930, he brought to a close a stage career on half a century. He had started life as a painter and became the best-known Shaespearean actor of his time.
He was born in New Orleans on December 6, 1859, the son of an English actor, Edwin Askew Sothern. His father determined that Sothern should be a painter, and eduated him accordingly. But the boy succumbed to the footlight lure in his blood. Success was assured when in 1885 Daniel Frohman asked him to join his famous company as leading man.
By the time he turned to Shakespeare in 1900 he was already a tradition of the stage.
Mr. Sothern was taken ill October 14 with a cold which developed into pneumonia. He and Mrs. Sothern had returned to the United States on October 6 for a short visit to Broadway before going to their winter home in Luxor, Egypt.
The two who helped make the stree what it is had planned to see the shows from the "Other Side of the Footlights."
They came here from London where Sothern's sister, Mrs. Eva Sothern Smith lives. The couple spent much of their time in London when they were not in Egypt or at their summer home in Switzerland.
The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, December 21, 1933:
Julia Marlowe's grief for the passing of E. H. Sothern was inconsolable. For days she sat at a hotel window overlooking Central Park in a dry-eyed daze. Until they took up a permanent residence in Luxor, Egypt, they resided intermittently several floors above in our building. His courtliness toward her in elevators and on way to their carriage had the tender gallantry of their stage Romeo and Juliet. In the servant halls, it was told how they used to sit at a window in softened melancholy watching the sun go down, holding hands.
The Newport Daily News, Newport, Rhode Island, November 17, 1950:
Perhaps the greatest tribute to Julia Marlowe is that she set standards by which modern heroines are still measured in Shakespearean roles. Her performances as Juiliet, Rosaline in "As You Like It," and Viola in "Twelfth Night," were her greatest. She ranks with the immortale of the Shakespearean stage. She has been compared with "Duse, Rejane and Bernhard.
For the last 10 years Miss Marlowe had lived a retiring life. Photographs of herself and her late husband E. H. Sothern, decorating the walls of her rooms in a New York hotel, were the only reminders of the years that they had played the American stage, bringing luster to it and glory to themselves. Her last public appearance was in 1944 when she gave 17 trunks of Sothern and Marlowe costumes to the Museum of the City of New York.
For nearly 40 years Miss Marlowe had the affection and admiration of the American theatre-going public and the praise of the critics. From her debut to her retirement she upheld the finest traditions of the stage. She has left to aspiring Shakespearean heroines a great example and to others of good theatre who had the good fortune to see her in person on "the boards" fond memories of one of the greatest of all performers.
Berkshire County Eagle, Berkshire, MA, November 13, 1950
New York (AP)
Julia Marlowe, one of the greatest Shakespearian actresses of all time, died yesterday at the age of 85.
With her husband, the late E. H. Sothern, she made up one of the most famous acting partnerships in the history of the American stage. Sothern died in 1933 at the age of 73.
Miss Marlowe died after a brief illness at the Plaza Hotel on Central Park, her home in New York for the last 30 years.
Both she and her husband retired in 1924.
Miss Marlowe was born Sarah Frances Frost in Cumberland, England, and was taken to Kansas as a child by her parents. She later adopted Julia Marlowe as her stage name. Her first stage appearance was at the age of 11 in a juvenile production of "HMS Pinafore." in which she sang a small part as a sailor.
She made her New York debut in 1887 as a star in "Ingomar." She was an instant success.
After an unsuccessful first marriage, she teamed up with Sothern in a stage partnership and married him in 1911.
Her most famous roles were Juliet, Rosaline in "As You Like It," and Viola in "Twelfth Night."
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow in St. James' Protestant Episcopal Church.
Nashua Telegraph, Nashua, New Hampshire, November 20, 1950
The Immortal Julia
Julia Marlowe's death at the age of 85 will stir unforgettable memories in many a mind--memories of a happier, more peaceful world; of high schools days and college years when the recurring theatrical season, always brought that superb actress and her husband, E. H. Sothern, to some nearby theatre, with a repertory of Shakespearean plays.
Between the turn of the century and the middle '20's "Sothern and Marlowe" shone high in the dramatic firmament across the country; and the plays of William Shakespeare were never more entrancingly staged than when these two fine artists trod the board. They are the last expositors of a great tradition which flourished throughout most of the 19th century--a tradition to which they dedicated high talents out of love of their own art and warm understanding of the greatest of our dramatists. Boston Globe.
Bedford Gazette, Bedford, PA, November 24, 1950
The Beautiful Miss Marlowe was a prime example of disappearance in the city, of the one-famous diamond dropping into the pool of water and sinking out of sight. As stated, she didn't concentrate on being a recluse, but just lived out her life in the Plaza quietly.
She didn't go to the saloons and clubs, and her performing days were over long ago. City editors and drama critics knew she existed, but she no longer was great news. The city had swallowed her.
This happens in every large city and even in some small ones, but never so completely as in New York. New Yorkers were past the stage of saying, "What ever became of Julia Marlowe?" That, they said 15 years ago. As of this year, they would have said, if they said anything at all: "Julia Marlowe? Who was she?"