OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16583, 5 July 1917, Page 5

OBITUARY.

SIR H. BEERBOHM TREE. (Received 11 p.m.) Reuter. LONDON, July 3. The death is announced of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the famous actor-manager. His death was unexpected. The cause was heart failure. He was recovering from an operation to his knee after an accident. The late Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was associated with many brilliant productions. He was born in 1853, and made his first appearance on the stage in 1877. He became manager of the Haymarket Theatre in 1887, and was at the time of his death proprietor and manager of His Majesty's Theatre, London. He was knighted by the late King Edward in 1909. Sir Herbert Tree's greatest success up to 1884 was in the part of Paolo Macari in " Called Back." In 1891 he played Hamlet for the first time. He produced "Trilby" at Manchester in 1895, playing his afterwards familiar part of Svengali, and in later years appeared with a success that made him famous in such Shakesperean plays as " Twelfth Night," " The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Much Ado About Nothing," "The Merchant of Venice," "Borneo and Juliet," and " Kin<? Henry Yin." But Sir Herbert Tree did not confine himself to Shakesperean parts, and his name is almost equally well known in connection with such diverse productions as " The Darling of the Gods," "Oliver Twist," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," "Faust," "The School for Scandal," The Perfect Gentleman," " Captain Swift," "A Man's Shadow," and "The Bed Lamp." He was the creator of the part of the Rev. Robert Spalding in the farce "The Private Secretary,' a part in which the late Mr. W. C. Penley made his name. The wide range of these plays indicate the versatility of Sir Herbert Tree's genius. The deceased actor had contemplated touring Australia and New Zealand. a