Madame Celeste was one of the old-fashioned sort of actresses, and worked harder in her single self than a whole “combination” does nowadays. She was very particular about rehearsals, and was as regular in attendance to them in the day as she was at the performances at night. She was a good dancer — a very good dancer — but her hobby was pantomime. She was, I guess, take her for all in all, the best pantomimist we ever had in this country; so I think, and my old friend Browne of the theatrical chophouse, who is a perfect two-legged book on the New York stage, agrees with me in this.
They say that when Celeste first came to this country she couldn’t speak a word of English. She had been playin’ in Pairs, and of course knew all about the French and several other European languages, but she hadn’t got the hang of the English jargon. But a woman, like a Russian, takes like a duck to swimmin’, to learnin’ languages, and in a little while Celeste could speak first-class English, with just the least bit of foreign accent. A great many liked her accent better than they did her English. She was the original French Spy in this country, and she was a prime favorite in “The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish”—a play which used to have quite a pull durin’ the last generation, though the managers nowadays have laid it on the shelf. Celeste wasn’t handsome, nor very drossy, neither; she didn’t frizz her hair, nor dye it; nor did she pad much; nor make up very stunnin’ on the stage. She trusted to nature, and, somehow, nature generally manages to pull one through. She was tall, slender, but very muscular: strong as most men, but graceful, too. There was nothin’ coarse about her. She knew how to use her limbs—her arms especially. She was great at using the sword. She was splendid at broadsword combats, and always brought down the house with ’em, and she liked ’em very much. “It keeps one’s arms at work,” she used to say. Her favorite of all pieces was “Green Bushes,” and she played this more than all her other pieces together.
She was about thirty-five years old when she commenced to learn English, and by the time she was forty years old she spoke it like a native. She made a great deal of money, but it never did her any good, she got food and clothes and lodgin’ out of it, and that was about all. The reason was that she had a man livin’ off of her money, who spent it faster than she could make it–her husband, a man by the name of Elliot. Somehow most of those big actresses have some man that takes all their money, as fast or faster than they can make it, and the worst of it is that the women can’t get rid of these men when they want to, but the men hang on to ’em like leeches, as long as they’ve got any blood or money to suck. An actress’s husband or lover generally sticks to that actress closer even than a politician sticks to an office after he’s once got it. In poor Celeste’s case she didn’t even want to get rid of her sticker, for she loved him. She more than loved him, she worshipped the ground he walked on, and all be had to do was to ask her for money, etc., to get all be wanted. He was a rather good-looking man, belonged to a good family down south somewhere— Baltimore, I think, and was pretty well educated. So she thought she had hooked a big fish, and was quite proud of him. Elliot lived on a grand scale. He never forgot that he was the husband and principal owner of a star actress. He put on lots of style, and at one time kept a four-in hand. In this establishment he once drove all the way from Baltimore to Boston, travelin’ with a suite just like a prince, and Celeste paid all the bills and thought all the while what a grand thing it was to have for herself such a grand man. Elliot got to the end of his rope at last, though, and died poor. Celeste afterwards got to be great friends with Ben Webster, the manager of the Adelphi Theatre in London, and married him, but afterwards separated from him. She is livin’ yet, I believe, and is now about seventy years of age. She has two or three children by her husband, Elliot, still livin’.
[Editor’s notes: Henry Elliott died in 1842, but was not yet destitute. In fact, Celeste inherited $25,000 from his estate. Most commentators, like the column above, believed that Elliott lived on her earnings. Their marriage was much more complicated, as the gossipy letter below relates. In sum, it appears he was abusive, and drove her away.
