Pauline Markham - British Blondes

Later in that year she accompanied Lydia Thompson to New York as a member of her British Blondes, opening at Wood's Museum (Broadway at 30th Street) on September 28, in the burlesque of "Ixion, or the Man at the Wheel." In the piece Markham plays the goddess Venus who is seduced by King Ixion (Thompson). Ixion had a combined run of 102 matinee and evening performances before closing on December 26, 1868. The following February Markham began a long run. at Niblo's Garden in Forty Thieves, Thompson’s burlesque of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. At the Union Square Theatre (then the Grand Theatre Tammany) in August, 1869 she played the central rôle Florizel in The Queen of Hearts, or Harlequin; the Knave of Hearts, that Stole the Tarts, and the Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe, a production that at least one New York Herald critic considered as foolish as its title.

In October, 1869 it was reported in the press that Markham’s investments had made her a fortune on Wall Street. During this time she was earning upwards to $150 a-week, at a time when an experienced actor might expect $50 for a week on the boards.

On October 28, 1870 Markham was seriously injured in a carriage accident in New York on Harlem Street, that at least one newspaper had reported her dead. Eleven days earlier she had opened with Thompson at Wood’s Theatre in a burlesque of the Wallace opera Lurline and after a relative short recuperation she chose to join the cast of the Niblo’s December revival of The Black Crook playing what would turn out to be her signature rôle.