Carlotta Leclercq
{{Short description|British actress}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| image = Carlotta Leclerq.jpg
| alt =
| caption = 1860 photo by Camille Silvy
| birth_name = 1838
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date = 9 August 1893
| death_place = Chelsea
| nationality = British
| other_names =
| occupation = Actress
| years_active =1853–1879
| known_for =
}}
Carlotta Leclercq (1838–1893{{cite web|title=Carlotta Leclercq as 'Titania'|url=http://www.19thcenturyphotos.com/Carlotta-Leclercq-as-%27Titania%27-124400.htm|publisher=The Library of Nineteenth-Century Photography|accessdate=30 January 2015}}) was a British actress.
Career
File:No Thoroughfare by Dickens and Wilkie Collins.jpg by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Left to right: Benjamin Webster, Mrs. Alfred Mellon, Henry G. Neville, Charles Albert Fechter, Carlotta Leclercq, John Billington, and George G. Belmore.]]
Leclercq was born as Margaret Charlotte Leclercq in Lambeth, then part of Surrey. Although she has been said to have been born on 12 June 1838, her baptism is actually recorded as having taken place five years earlier, on 3 April 1833, in Liverpool.Baptism register at St Peter's, Liverpool, on Ancestry; the 1861 census for St Pancras records the Leclercq family as residents, and states that Margaret Charlotte was 26 at the time - which would make her birth 1835. She was one of the children of Charles Clark (1797–1861) and his wife, Margaret, née Burnet. Clark was a pantomimist and ballet master, who performed under the stage name of Charles Leclercq.Knight, Joseph, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16263, "Leclercq, Carlotta (1838–1893)"], rev. J Gilliland, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2008 accessed 30 January 2015 {{ODNBsub}}. All of her brothers and sisters were actors: Rose, Louise, Charles Jr., Arthur and Pierre Leclercq.
Leclercq's debut was at the Princess Theatre when she was a child. In 1853 she performed as Maddalina in Marco Spada, followed by Marguerite in Faust and Marguerite. She also performed in the Muleteer of Toledo, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream.[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O145771/guy-little-theatrical-photograph-photograph-silvy-camille-leon/ photo by Camille Silvy], Guy Little collection, V and A
Leclerq was the first to play Diana in Don't Judge by Appearances, Brougham's Playing with Fire, Zillah in Duke's Motto, Madame de Pompadour in King's Butterfly, and Lucy Ashton in Master of Ravenswood. She performed at the Adelphi Theatre, starring as Mercedes Monte Christo and as Marguerite in No Thoroughfare in 1868 and as Emily Milburn in Black and White.[http://www.wilkie-collins.info/plays_actors.htm#KO Actors in the plays of Wilkie Collins], retrieved 30 January 2015 She left England and went to the United States with Charles Fechter. In 1877, she returned to England and married the actor John Nelson in York (the marriage entry gives her name as Margaret Carlotta Leclercq). The two performed together until his death, two years later.{{cite DNBSupp|wstitle=Leclercq, Carlotta|volume=3}} She stopped performing after 1879 in London although she made occasional appearances in the provinces.
Leclerq became known as a teacher of theatre skills. She died on 9 August 1893 at her home in Chelsea.Joseph Knight, ‘Leclercq, Carlotta (1838–1893)’, rev. J. Gilliland, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16263, accessed 30 Jan 2015]
References
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Category:19th-century English actresses