Mary Brough

Mary Bessie Brough (16 April 1863 – 30 September 1934) was an English actress in theatre, silent films and early talkies, including eleven of the twelve Aldwych farces of the 1920s and early 1930s. The daughter of a well-known actor, Lionel Brough, with a long theatrical family tradition, she became a professional actress in December 1881. Although she was in regular demand in character parts she did not become well known to theatre-goers until she was nearly sixty. In 1922 she was cast in a small part in a farce, Tons of Money, which was followed by a ten-year series of new farces at the Aldwych Theatre for which the actor-manager Tom Walls assembled a regular company of players, including Brough. The playwright Ben Travers wrote parts expressly to suit her persona; she recorded several of them in films of the farces.