first took note of her in April 1879. Later that year, when he opened his third New York theatre, Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre, Rehan joined his company. Rehan would continue to work with Daly until his death twenty years later, but their relationship, though marked by enormous professional success for both, was a turbulent one. Rehan was part of Daly's company, known as the "Big Four". John Drew, Jr., Mrs. Ann Hartley Gilbert, and James Lewis made the rest of the group. Under Daly's meticulous direction and management, the foursome won over critics and audiences with their specialities of Shakespearean comedies, Restoration comedies, and translations of German farces. In general, the four leads played variations on the same character types. Drew and Rehan were slotted in to the romantic hero and heroine roles, while Lewis and Gilbert took the older, character roles. As one reporter at the Herald described it, "They have one way of playing comedy at Daly's and only one. Whether the piece be Sheridan's or Shakespeare's or Schonthan's or Jerome's, the actors are always good, bright, middle-class Americans." While finding much success in "breeches roles", for her audiences in America and abroad she came to embody an ideal of femininity that was desirable, respectable, and aspirational. In his biography of her, one of Rehan's contemporaries, William Winter wrote "Each part that she has undertaken has been permeated with something of herself...Her soul is given to her profession, and the nature of the woman herself is discerned in that of the character that she represents." It soon became clear that Rehan was the star of Daly's company even within the Big Four, but Daly refused to acknowledge this with top billing or any other prioritizing treatment. Rehan and Daly's professional relationship was further complicated by their personal one. It is generally acknowledged that Rehan became the married Daly's mistress early on in their partnership. Cornelia Otis Skinner writes of their relationship that "besides being leading lady, [she] enjoyed the offstage role of grand maitresse...To hold the whip handle by keeping a woman of her beauty and prominence in the compromising position and extra-marital liaison involved in those cautious times was a sop to his will to power." Their romantic entanglement coupled with their professional symbiosis makes it easy to interpret their relationship as Svengali-esque. Daly and Rehan's greatest achievement, and the production that most reflected their own combative