Louisa Lane Drew

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Lane_Drew

Louisa Lane Drew (January 10, 1820 – August 31, 1897 in Philadelphia) was a British actress and theater owner.

She and her third husband John Drew were the parents of Louisa Drew (1852–1888), John Drew, Jr. and Georgie Drew (Barrymore). She had no children from her first two marriages. The Drews owned the Arch Street Theatre, where they staged performances, and she managed the business. After her husband's death Mrs Drew adopted a baby boy and named him Sidney. She was the grandmother of John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore. Her other grand children were Georgie Drew Mendum an actress (from her daughter Louisa and Charles Mendum) and Louise Drew (Mrs Jack Devereaux) also an actress( from her son John Drew Jr and his wife Josephine) as well as S. Rankin Drew, Sidney's son with his wife Gladys Rankin. She is the great-great-grandmother of Drew Barrymore.

She appeared in plays with Junius Brutus Booth Sr. and his son, John Wilkes Booth. The younger Booth assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. In the mid 1890s the aged Mrs Drew appeared in an all star revival of Sheridan's The Rivals. In 1897 an ailing Louisa Drew spent the summer at her annual Larchmont, New York retreat with her grandsons Lionel and John Barrymore. She died at the end of August 1897 aged 77.

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Louisa Lane Drew (January 10, 1820 - August 31, 1897 in Philadelphia) was a British - American actor. She and her husband John Drew owned the Arch Street Theatre, where they staged performances, and she managed the business.

Matriarch Louisa Lane worked with stage stars even better remembered today than she is, actors such as Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson.