Della Fox - Critical Response

Critical Response

Lewis Clinton Strang described seeing Fox at various stages of her career. Writing after 1900, he summarized: "Her appealing, unsophisticated girlishness had gone, and in its place was self-possession and authority. She was charming in her daintiness, provoking in her coquetry, a tanalizing atom of feminity. Her archness was not bold nor unwomanly, and her vivacity was well within the bounds of refinement and good taste. Her singing voice, too, was musical, though not over strong."

In describing her first supporting role with De Wolf Hopper, Strang wrote: "Her success in this larger field was remarkable, and before the summer was over she was sharing the honors with Hopper and was just as strong a popular favorite as he. Her Blanche was a delightful creation throughout, but best remembered is the "athletic duet" in which she and Hopper gave amusing pantomimic representations of games of billiards, baseball, and other familiar sports." Of her role in Wang, Strang wrote: "This was, perhaps, the most artistic of all her roles. She was cute, impish, and jaunty in turn as the Crown Prince, and, in addition, was a picture never to be forgotten in her perfect fitting white flannel suit, worn in the second act."

Of Panjandrum, an unnamed New York Times reviewer wrote that "gets a peculiar sort of assistance from Miss Della Fox, who can neither act nor sing and who is not pretty, but who rejoices in a marvelous popularity." Yet a subsequent reviewer (also unnamed) wrote: songs and dances are encored until the little woman is forced from sheer weariness to decline further responses." Author Willa Cather was delighted by Panjandrum and wrote of its co-star:

"Miss Della Fox is indescribable as she is audacious and as delicious as she is audacious. She is little, very little beside Mr. Hopper's awful bigness, and captivating, and in the fullest sense of the word, she is chic. She is undoubtedly the most popular woman on stage just now. When the Dramatic News was rash enough to publish her picture they sold out all their issue and by the constant demand of the public were forced to reprint the picture in the next issue. Many actresses have elements of success, but Della Fox has success, which is quite a different thing. She has the dash and natural flippancy of a comedienne. She carries mirth in her face and has laughter hidden away in her eyes. She only has to move her foot and the house feels happy, she has only to wink her eye and it laughs, she has only to faint on a barrel and hundred of people are carried away by convulsions of laughter. She has a sort of personal magnetism of mirth about her. There is nothing really pretty in her face, yet she was bewitching as a blond, fascinating as a brunette, and because of her vivacity altogether lovely".

Philip Hale wrote of her role in Fleur-De-Lis:

"Disagreeable qualities in the customary performance of Miss Fox were not nearly so much in evidence as in some of her other characters. She was not so deliberately affected, she was not so brazen in her assurance. Even her vocal mannerisms were not so conspicuous. She almost played with discretion, and often she was delightful. Her self-introduction to her father was one long to be remembered. No wonder that the audience insisted on seeing it again and again. All in all, Miss Fox appeared greatly to her advantage."

At the turn of the century, this description summed up Fox's talent:

"She is a delightful little fairy with whom to be cast upon desert places. She has a continual childish sparkle of humor, never failing under trials submerging the usual woman, and her distresses are as comic as her escapades of fun. She doesn't think deeply, but she thinks often, and the result of her fleecy little mental efforts are always silvered with a laugh.... Miss Fox has no voice to brag upon, but her personality and piquancy, her earnestness and fund of natural American humor make her an enjoyable singer of tuneful ditties and chic airs. She dances with fairy grace, and turns a joke into laughter with a snap of her fingers or flash of her eye. She is a great pet of boys and girls; they believe in Della blindly, and adore her for fooling them."