Faye Templeton

A favorite of musical comedy for forty years, Faye Templeton was born on Christmas Day, 1865, at Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Templeton Opera Company was playing. Her father, John Templeton, owned the show, and her mother, Alice Vane, was one of the singers. When she was three, dressed as Cupid, she sang songs between acts. At eight she played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. After years of trouping she became the principal soubrette of Weber and Fields' Music Hall where her throaty contralto voice and instinct for comedy made her a favorite, and where she sang and made famous, "Rosy, You Are My Posey." "Mary Is A Grand Old Name" was another song she popularized in her greatest success, Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, which George M. Cohan wrote especially for her. She received great acclaim also as Buttercup in Pinafore. At fifteen she eloped with Billy West, a minstrel man, and divorced him three years later. In 1887 she married Howell Osborn, a wealthy playboy, and went abroad to live. The marriage was kept a secret until his death in 1895. She retired in 1905 when William Patterson, wealthy Pittsburgh manufacturer, became her third husband. She came out of retirement several times during this marriage which lasted until his death in 1931. Her last stage role was in Roberta in 1934. Always a generous woman, she found herself in financial difficulties in 1936, and refusing to allow a proposed benefit for her, she accepted the hospitality of the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey. She left the home in 1937 and went to live with a cousin in San Francisco where she died October 3, 1939. Burial was in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

The Stubborness of Geraldine, Templeton (in black hat, center), Collier (with gun)