OBITUARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 106, 1 November 1904, Page 5

OBITUARY.

DAN LENO, COMEDIAN. Lpr'ess association.] (Received November 1, 8.46 a.m.) LONDON, 31st October. The death is announced of Dan Leno. The deceased actor was 43 years of age, and was one of the most popular comedians on the English stage. In a recent number of the English Illustrated Magazine Mr. Leno thus characteristically told the story of his life:— "In the year 1861' (the same year, by the way, in which my friend Albert Chevalier first saw the light) I came into the world without a penny in my pocket. The incident occurred in the region of King's Cross, London, in that part of it where St. Pancras Station now stands. "I made my first public appearance at the age of three at the Cosmotheda, a music-hall near the Edgware-road. I was very small, and was arrayed in a pair of tights, parti-coloured, red one side and blue the other. They looked all right, I've no doubt, but they consisted only of a pair of etocldngs fastened at the neck wfth a garter, after having been arranged by my mother su that they fitted me. "My father and mother followed the same profession that I have done all my life. They toured as Mr. and Mia. Johnny Wilde, and I toured with them with my stockings. I was an acrobat in those early days; but when I was five years old I had an accident which made an end of my acrobatic performances, and I took to dancing instead, my brother instructing me in the art. "I won fame, in the first instance, with my clog-dancing. The first time I really turned it to much account was at Wakefield, where I entered a clog-dancing competition for a purse of silver and a leg of mutton* and carried off the prize. Seventeen years ago I came to London as 'Champion Clog-Dancer of the World,' and appeared at three halls in that capacity. But the public preferred my songs, so I became a comedian. "The Christmas pantomimes come to me somewhat in the nature of a holiday. It is a different audience from the 'Halls,' and the work is a complete change. When I first came to London halls, my initial success was a little ballad entitled 'Milk for the Twine,' wherein I appeared as a distressed female. "Owing to the fact that Mr. George Conquest saw me'perform" this, 1 was engaged to play old women in pantomimes for some years after. My first pantomime was at the Surrey Theatre in 1886, when I took the part of Jack's mother in 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' "People Lave been asking me a great deal lately about my visit to Sandringham, and my performance before His Majesty the King there. I enjoyed it beyond everything. On the Saturday as I was sitting down with my wife the news first came to me. 'It is the King's, wish,' I was fold, 'that you should go to Sandringham on Tuesday and give a performance.' 'I can't,' I replied, I'm performing at Brixton.' You see, I get so many applications for extra entertainments that before I quite realised the news I thought it was another benefit 6r something. 'It is the King's command,' I was told, and then 'it broke upon me, and I said 'Ob!' very suddenly,"