Ethel Marion Rathbone

Actress. First wife of actor Basil Rathbone. While acting with Frank Benson's Shakespeare company, Rathbone met and fell in love with a fellow performer, Ethel Marion Foreman. He wrote, "Marion Foreman had been on the stage for some time before I met her at Stratford on Avon in August 1913. She was an excellent actress with a beautiful speaking and singing voice. We were cast opposite one another in 'second leads,' such as Lorenzo and Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, and Silvius and Phoebe in As You Like It. Both on and off the stage we saw much of each other for many months."5 Basil and Marion were married at the church of St. Luke Parrish of Battersea, London, on October 3, 1914. The following July their son Rodion was born. The Rathbones divorced 1926.