Maggie Moore started out acting in her home city of San Francisco. At age twenty she met James Cassius Williamson and two years later, in 1873, they married. The following year the couple accepted George Coppin's offer to tour Australia, heralding long careers in the country for both of them. Williamson and Moore were an immediate hit with audiences through their roles in Williamson's play Struck Oil. Moore was also later successful in Williamson's Gilbert and Sullivan operas along with other works - notably La Mascotte (1883), playing Bettina opposite Nellie Stewart (as Fiametta), and Meg, the Castaway, as Meg (1890).
Moore returned to San Francisco in 1887 to visit her mother and while there was accorded much acclaim for her performances. She and Williamson toured India in 1891 but he was by then turning his attention to entrepreneurial ventures. Relations between the couple had by then also become became strained, and they eventually parted ways, with Moore forming her own company. She continued a busy acting career in Australia and regularly toured overseas. After divorcing Williamson she later married actor Henry R. Roberts. In 1919 the pair starred in a film adaptation of Struck Oil.
Moore left Australia for the last time in 1924, returning home to San Francisco. She retired from the stage the following year and died in 1926 from injuries sustained after being run over by a cable car.
[Source: Richard Refshauge. 'Moore, Maggie (1851–1926)', Australian Dictionary of Biography]
