Elsie De Wolfe
American Actress and Decorator
1865 – 1950 A.D.

Elsie De Wolfe, an American actress and decorator, born in New York City. After studying in Paris, she made her theatrical début in New York in 1891, in Sardou’s Thermidor, playing the rôle of Fabienne with Forbes-Robertson.

In 1894 she joined the Empire Theatre Company, and during the next ten years played a number of parts, in which she displayed a delicacy of sentiment and refinement of method. She retired from the stage in 1905 and devoted herself to interior decorating, with much success. In 1913 she published The House in Good Taste.

When the European War broke out Miss De Wolfe went to France where she rendered valuable service in the hospitals near the front, and was decorated by the French government with the Legion of Honor for bravery under fire while aiding in the removal of wounded soldiers to a place of safety.

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Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.