 The novel was adapted for the stage for the first time in 1897.This production by Lorimer Stoddard proved a great Broadway triumph for actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, was revived in 1902, and subsequently made into a motion picture by Adolph Zukor in 1913, starring Mrs. Fiske; no copies remain.In 1924 Hardy himself wrote the script for the first British theatrical adaptation and he chose Gertrude Bugler, a Dorchester girl from the original Hardy Players, to play Tess.