Margaret Hughes
It is actually very unlikely that Margaret Hughes was the first actress, as she is depicted in Stage Beauty. There is no evidence that she acted any time before 1668 (when Pepys met her at the King's Theatre), while the first actresses were on the stage as early as 1660 or 1661. However, she was still a well-known actress, and as in Stage Beauty, she was the mistress of Sir Charles Sedley early in her theatrical career. Pepys describes her as "a mighty pretty woman, and seems, but is not, modest." She played Desdemona at the King's Theatre in 1669, and she left the stage to become the mistress of Prince Rupert in either 1669 or 1670 (this was common at the time).
Though Nell Gwynn and Peg Hughes are portrayed as friends in Stage Beauty, in real life, one of the King's servants killed Hughes' brother in 1670 in a dispute over whether Gwynn or Mrs. Hughes was "the handsomer now at Windsor."
Margaret gave birth to a daughter in 1673, Ruperta, and returned to the stage in 1676. A year later, she retired again and Prince Rupert set her up a house in Hammersmith, where she lived with Ruperta. Prince Rupert died in 1682 and left a great deal of money to both Margaret and Ruperta, but Margaret gambled away her share and probably spent her old age dependent on her daughter.
Sources: All the King's Ladies; Actresses of the Restoration by John Harold Wilson, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, And Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800, vol. 8 by Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans
Though Nell Gwynn and Peg Hughes are portrayed as friends in Stage Beauty, in real life, one of the King's servants killed Hughes' brother in 1670 in a dispute over whether Gwynn or Mrs. Hughes was "the handsomer now at Windsor."
Margaret gave birth to a daughter in 1673, Ruperta, and returned to the stage in 1676. A year later, she retired again and Prince Rupert set her up a house in Hammersmith, where she lived with Ruperta. Prince Rupert died in 1682 and left a great deal of money to both Margaret and Ruperta, but Margaret gambled away her share and probably spent her old age dependent on her daughter.
Sources: All the King's Ladies; Actresses of the Restoration by John Harold Wilson, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, And Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800, vol. 8 by Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans