FAMOUS ACTOR DEAD

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22245, 9 November 1937, Page 11

FAMOUS ACTOR DEAD

Sir Johnston Forbes- ! Robertson I I LONG ASSOCIATION WITH I RRITLSH STAGE j f ll'Nl i r,l> PRKSf ASSOCIATION Cnl VBHifn .) ! (Received November 8, 5.5 p.m.) i LONDON, November 7. i The death is announced of -the ! noted British actor and theatrical i manager, Sir Johnston Forbes-Rob-, ertson. He was 84 years of age . | Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson was . born in London and was educated at , the Charterhouse. His first appearance j os an actor was in the drawing room j at his home at Christmas, 18G6, when j the children—there were 11 —ambiti- | ously attempted “Macbeth” and next j year “Hamlet,” which was to bo his t most famous part, before an audience 1 which included Swinburne. Rossetti. Madox B”own, Alma Tadema and j Hamo Thornycroft. His first love was painting, and at 16. on Rossetti's advice, his father, who was an art critic, sent him to Hoathcrly’s to draw from tho antique. A year later he became a student at ! the Royal Academy, and a close friend of Samuel Butler. At 19 he went on to the stage. Though he loved the theatre, he had no wish to become an actor, but as tho eldest of a large family he had to earn his own living, and W. G. Wills offered him a part mi “Mary Queen o’ Scots." His next engagement brought him into touch with Charles Reade and Ellen Terry. Then he joined the stock company of Charles Calvert at the Prince's. Manchester. which both as regards music and the drama was considerably in advance of London.

He had to appear with Phelps and had the supreme good fortune to bo taken up and coached by that great actor whose portrait he later painted ns Wolscy. His interest in art never leit him, and he made many portraits for which he got commissions mainly through the kindness of Millais. He appeared in the original run of “Diplomacy,” understudying Bancroft. With Gilbert he onec had a quarrel at a rehearsal, and, though they often met. they did not speak to each other for SO years. Suddenly Gilbert wrote ‘•ugge-sting a reconciliation, and after that they were fast friends. While he was on holiday in Cornwall m- 1880 with Modjeska and her husband, they gave scenes from “Romeo and Juliet" ,n the rectory garden on a moonlight night No stage balcony scene was ever so beautiful, and the success of this venture led to the starling of the “Pastoral Players” by Ben Greet. In 1 882 he joined Irving, who commissioned him to paint the church scene in “Much Ado About Nothing,” and characteristically sent him a cheque for twice the sum agreed on because the picture bad been done on a canvas much larger than originally intended. The picture now hangs in the Players’ Club, New York. In November. 1883, he again joined the Bancrofts, and was with them till they retired in 1885. The same year he began his first American tour as Mary Anderson’s leading man. Career as Actor-Manager

In September. 1895, he went into management at the Lyceum along with Frederic Harrison, Irving having generously let him have the theatre during his absence in America at the rent it cost him. He played “Romeo and Juliet” with Mrs Patrick Campbell. “Michael and His Lost Angel,” “For the Crown,” and “Magda.” In 1897 he again thought of the Lyceum, and as he had not the necessary money to lake it, Horatio Bottomley offered to back him. while Irving suggested that he should give “Hamlet,” offering to lend him all his scenery, properties. and dresses. This deeply touched Forbcs-Robertson, for Irving was not 100 old to play Hamlet —a part in which he had won golden opinions. Thanks to this suggestion, Forbes-Robertson was induced to put on a drama in which he scored his greatest successes. In 1898 he loured m Germany and Holland with “Hamlet,” '‘Macbeth” and “The Second Mrs Tanqueray,” and later produced an English version of Maeterlinck’s “Pelleas and Melisande,” Shaw’s “Devil’s Disciple” and “The Light That Failed.” In December, 1900, he married Gertrude Elliott, who had recently joined his company.

In September, 1903, he began his first American tour as a manager, expecting to make “The Light That Failed” the attraction, but it did not draw as it had done in England, and he had to send home for the scenery, properties, and dresses for “Hamlet” which was successfully given at Philadelphia In New York the American actors honoured him by asking for a special performance on a morning when they were not acting. He went south to Richmond which he described as “that picturesque old town with its soft-voiced people,” and westward to Chicago. In 1905 he made r tour in Canada and in 1907 gave Shaw’s “Caesar and Cleopatra” in the United States and Canada, finding it much more popular there than it had been in London. In 190(1, Jerome K. Jerome offered him ‘The Passing of the Third Floor Back.” and fascinated by the piece, but very dubious as to its attracting the public, he accepted it. With the exception of “Hamlet,” it proved the greatest financial success he had ever bad, especially in America, to which he took it in 1909. He toured there and m Canada till 1912, when he decided to begin the long process of taking leave of his admirers on both sides of the Atlantic. Beginning with the provincial towns in England and Scotland, he then gave a season at Drury Lane, which ended on June 3. 1913. In the same month he was knighted

In the autumn he set out on a protracted and very successful farewell round of the United States and Canada. His last appearance on the stage before his retirement was made as Hamlet in the Sheldon Lecture Theatre at the University of Harvard in the spring of 1916. and on the same night his company presented him with a replica of the chair he had so often used as the Prince of Denmark. He emerged ir. June. 1918. to play in a benefit performance of Barrie’s. "A Wcll-remcmbered Voice.”