Edna Wallace Hopper - To New York

To New York

Edna had gone to New York to train for the stage. While there, she had married DeWolf Hopper (1858–1935) on 28 June 1895. They appeared in several comic operas together, including John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, before they divorced in 1898. The couple presented a striking physical contrast on stage. DeWolf, at 6 ft 5 in, was exceptionally tall for the time, while Edna stood under five feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. By the time of her mother's marriage to Alex, Edna was already a star on Broadway.

Edna met up with her mother and new stepfather while they were in New York. Alex sick with alcohol withdrawal got worse every day and died on New Year's Day in a New York City hospital.

Josephine returned a widow to her new San Leandro estate. She died of cancer there on June 22, 1901.

By this time Wallace Hopper had starred in her most famous role, Lady Holyrood in the popular London importation Florodora. Though not playing one of the renowned Florodora Sextettes, she shared in some of the wild adulation of male admirers who mobbed the stage door after every performance.

Wallace Hopper remained active on stage over the next decade, including starring in George M. Cohan's Fifty Miles from Boston in 1907. Edna married Wall Street broker Albert O. Brown in 1908. Her professional activity lessened in the 1910s but resumed in a new direction in the 1920s. One of the earlier stage actors to have a facelift, Wallace Hopper had the operation filmed and then made personal appearance tours over the next eight years showing the film and giving beauty tips.