The study concentrates on the marriage and divorce patterns within the circles of actresses working in Budapest in the long nineteenth century, based on the author’s own database generated out of the data on 239 actresses, who with the exception of the first generation, were all employed in the Hungarian capital between 1790 and 1914. The figures suggest that the number of marriages to actors or theatre professionals is consistently high until a significant drop from 83% to 49% at the end of the period under scrutiny. At the beginning of the period studied, actresses entered the profession through their marriage or because of the family background rather than as a result of their own conscious career choice. Later, their career decisions appear to be increasingly independent, mostly due to the aforementioned decrease of husbands affiliated with the theatre industry and the fact that actresses in the second generation of the sample usually married after their theatrical career was established. While the proportion of actor husbands was decreasing, that of theatre professionals was on the rise (with some fluctuation). The analysis of individual life stories allows for the speculation that actresses often married to promote their own interests. Actors and theatre professionals as husbands were able to help their wives’ career, while “civilians” could help them rise to higher social status; and new marriages often also served to stabilise the actresses’ financial situation. The divorce ratio was rather high across all generations of actresses in this period: with the 15–30%, it was significantly higher than the national average. It is conspicuous that the new husbands were, almost without exception, more successful, affluent or respectable, than the previous ones. Extramarital relationships were frequent mostly before, between and after marriages. The motivation for affairs was to some extent similar to those for marriages, although adventure and sensuality clearly played a greater role in these relationships.

Theatres have always had an important role as shapers of mentalities and social functions. Ever since female roles are played by female actors, they became role models both in attitudes and in culture and education. Whether they wanted it or not, actresses have always had an influence on their audience. Their clothes and mannerisms were imitated readily. Their profession meant that they were constantly in the public eyes and from the beginning of the twentieth century, their private life was shared with the news reading public, too. A large part of female theatre-goers wanted to imitate their favourite stage actresses, thus they bought the beauty products advertised by them, had their clothes made in the style of their idol’s stage outfits, and copied their hairstyle and even their mannerisms. Since it was first the stage outfits that women began to imitate in everyday fashion, the study of the actresses’ wardrobes necessarily includes these. Hungarian actresses became ‘fashion dictators’ in the modern sense from the second half of the nineteenth century. Their first field of conquest was lifestyle and the market for beauty products, probably because (besides aristocrats and the grand bourgeoisie) it was their name and face that was known by the public enough to be used to advertise certain products. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, middle class ladies began to copy the stage outfits of actresses. From the middle of the century, fashion salons began to use the most popular actresses as living advertisements and other professionals of the beauty industry, such as hairdressers, beauty product manufacturers and jewellers, also discovered their potential. After the turn of the century, nearly everything became marketable by actresses: cars, home decoration, sporting equipment, food and drink. While this trend has continued in the West without faltering, this phenomenon turned out differently in Hungary and actresses have lost their role as fashion influence after the Second World War.