A brief study of the art and the personality of the famous Parisian actress, with portraits of her as she appears in some of her best characters.
Madame Jane Hading - who isn't Jane Hading at all, but of that anon - is an accident; a happy, in many respects a delightful accident - still an accident. Here it might be well, perhaps, to pause and remark that there are not a very great many actors and actresses whose success has not been due to fortuitousness; or, to speak more exactly, whose opportunity to display ability was not accidental. "Ostler Joe's" felicitous drawing room debut gave the stage Mrs. Potter. The unexpected badness of a Delesparre years ago, in Dublin, when Helen Barry was revealing judicious Boucicaultean teaching as Armande in "Led Astray," led to Kyrle Bellew's trial rehearsal in the part.
Was Hading a conservatoire pupil? Surely not, My first recollection of her is that some leading woman in a play running at one of the principal theaters of Paris was taken ill, and Jane Hading, who was either "supering," or playing an unimportant part, came forward to substitute for the indisposed "lead" at a few hours' notice. How did she know the words?
Here I'm reduced to gossip, and the “gyp” of that hour was that the manager was particularly interested in and benevolent towards the long, lithe girl who was soon to win fame as Jane Hading. She must have satisfied requirements on this occasion, for my next reminiscence is that the manager in question - Victor Koning, of the Renaissance abandoned benevolence for responsibility and acquisitiveness, This latter quality displayed itself not only in marrying a charming woman, but in controlling the immediate earnings of a promising actress, and the subsequent money value of a new star. I hope I am not doing this gentleman scant justice in these remarks, but in those days we had a definite impression that the marriage was distinctly worldly on both sides.

The face of this actress is worth attentive study. Not so beautiful as Mary Anderson's in feature, perhaps, but with a style of loveliness more useful on the stage, for it is desperately hard to get expression into perfect features. They are despairingly immobile; emotion finds little or no anchorage upon them; whereas on irregular physiognomies there seems to be holding ground for such immediate revelations of the thoughts that speech is accessory rather than necessary. Jane Hading's eyes are almost marvelous. No mere picture, however carefully selected, can do justice to the "windows of her soul." She is tall, thin, and graceful in her stage movements. She weighs what women of her age ought to weigh, and not what too many successful stars are injudicious enough to permit themselves to weigh.
Of her acting it would be quite possible to write nothing but agreeable phrases, but to do so would hardly enable the reader to evaluate her position among her contemporaries. She can play quite well, for instance, a part in which Mme. Bernhardt has failed - that is, in the opinion of the author of the play and of the Paris critics. Yet, to be perfectly frank, Mme. Hading does not advantageously compare with her older compeers. The real rivals for the position of prcmiere artiste dramatique de nos jours are Duse and Bernhardt. Hading is merely among the prominent secondary stars, and her best work is when she depicts the French gentlewoman of private life, the young lady who at the instigation of her parents has made a marriage de convenance, and, overtaken by the tender passion too late, successfully combats its dangerous workings.
One of her most interesting assumptions is that of Clorinde in Augier's "Aventuriere." The part is an odd one. Clorinde is the sister of a rascally brother, and pretends to be a highly born dame who has been in grief and trouble, and to fall in love with a rich. and richly sympathetic, old nobleman. The marriage is stopped by the old gentleman's son, who returns from foreign lands in the nick of time, and Clorinde, falling genuinely in love, for the first time in her life, with the son, Fabrice, retires in a reformatory frame of mind to a convent.

To sum up, Hading is a very agreeable actress and a very beautiful woman, but her superiority to some American players is not distinctly apparent to the present writer. If the possibility of true greatness is denied her, she will never be without great charm - which in these days is much.
Originally published in Munsey’s Magazine. November 1895.
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