Richard Le Gallienne
Richard Le Gallienne (20 January 1866 – 15 September 1947) was an English author and poet. The British-American actress Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991) was his daughter, by his second marriage to Danish journalist Julie Nørregaard (1863–1942).
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Richard Le Gallienne (20 January 1866 – 15 September 1947) was an English author and poet. The British-American actress Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991) was his daughter, by his second marriage to Danish journalist Julie Nørregaard (1863–1942).
He was born Richard Thomas Gallienne in Liverpool, England to a middle-class family. He attended the (then) all-boys public school Liverpool College. After leaving school he changed his name to Le Gallienne and started work in an accountant's office in London. In 1883, his father took him to a lecture by Oscar Wilde in Birkenhead. He soon abandoned this job to become a professional writer with ambitions of being a poet. His book My Ladies' Sonnets appeared in 1887, and in 1889 he became, for a brief time, literary secretary to Wilson Barrett. In the summer of 1888, he met Wilde, and the two had a brief affair. Le Gallienne and Wilde continued an intimate correspondence after the end of the affair.
He joined the staff of the newspaper The Star in 1891 and wrote for various papers by the name Logroller. He contributed to The Yellow Book and associated with the Rhymers' Club.
His first wife, Mildred Lee, and their second daughter Maria died in 1894 during childbirth, leaving behind Richard and their daughter Hesper. After Mildred's death, he carried with him at all times, including while married to his second wife, an urn containing Mildred's ashes. Rupert Brooke, who met Le Gallienne in 1913 aboard a ship bound for the United States but did not warm to him, wrote a short poem "For Mildred's Urn" satirising this behaviour.
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