Forbes-Robertson
British postcard, dated 17-7-1903. Photo Lafayette, London, No. 2014.
Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) was a British actor and theatre manager. He was considered the finest Hamlet of the Victorian era, and also played Hamlet a few times on the screen.
Johnston Forbes-Robertson was born in London on 16 January 1853, as the eldest of the eleven children of theatre critic and journalist John Forbes-Robertson and his wife Frances. One of his sisters, Frances, and three of his brothers, Ian, Norman and John, also became actors. He was the brother-in-law of famed actress Maxine Elliott, the uncle of economist Roy Harrod, and great-uncle of actress Meriel Forbes (granddaughter of his brother Norman), who married actor Ralph Richardson.
While intending to become an artist, he trained for three years at the Royal Academy, but reluctantly and for financial needs he began a theatrical career, when dramatist William Gorman Wills offered him a role in his play Mary Queen of Scots. His many performances led him into travel to the U.S., work with Sir Henry Irving, and moving in the highest aristocratic and cultural circles. In 1895 he took over the management of the Lyceum Theatre, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as leading lady. Here he gave memorable performances as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo, and produced himself Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande, in which his Romantic style of acting was highly successful.
Forbes-Robertson was hailed as one of the most individual and refined of English actors, noted for his ascetic features but even more for his fine elocution, particularly by George Bernard Shaw who wrote him the part of Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra, which premiered in March 1899 at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. Forbes-Robertson played opposite Gertrude Elliott as Cleopatra, both part of Mrs. Patrick Campbell's company. Other notable roles were Othello, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, and in particular his successful lead in Jerome K. Jerome’s The Passing of the Third Floor Back; performed on Broadway in 1908, filmed in 1916, and released in 1918. Forbes-Robertson did not play Hamlet until he was 44 years old, but after his success in this part he continued playing it until 1916, including a surviving silent film (1913), see www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4YVWqhPDr8 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk6qI40HjT0. Shaw considered him the greatest Hamlet he had ever seen. Hear Forbes-Robertson reciting Hamlet: www.britannica.com/biography/Johnston-Forbes-Robertson, also www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYR50uA8nU (recordings from 1928, when the actor was 75).
In the 1880s Forbes-Robertson acted in plays with the gifted actress Mary Anderson and asked her hand in marriage, but she kindly turned him down, though they remained friends. Later he and actress Beatrice Campbell enjoyed a brief affair during the time she starred with him in a series of Shakespearean plays in the mid-1890s. In 1900, at age 47, he married American-born actress Gertrude Elliott (1874–1950), sister of Maxine Elliott, with whom he had four daughters. Their second daughter Jean Forbes-Robertson became an accomplished actress. Through her he is the grandfather of actress Joanna Van Gyseghem. Johnston Forbes-Robertson was knighted in 1913 at the age of 60, at which point he retired from acting. He returned to the stage, however, for a farewell tour of the US in 1914-1915, making his last appearance onstage at the Sanders Theatre in Boston with a performance of Hamlet. In the last years of his life he produced plays by George Bernard Shaw and Jerome K. Jerome. His literary works include: The Life and Life-Work of Samuel Phelps (actor and theatre manager) as well as his own autobiography Johnston Forbes-Robertson: A Player Under Three Reigns (1925).
On November 6, 1937, Johnston Forbes-Robertson died at St. Margaret's Bay, near Dover, Kent, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London on November 9. Memorial services were held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London.
Sources: English Wikipedia, IMDB.
Forbes-Robertson
British postcard, dated 17-7-1903. Photo Lafayette, London, No. 2014.
Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) was a British actor and theatre manager. He was considered the finest Hamlet of the Victorian era, and also played Hamlet a few times on the screen.
Johnston Forbes-Robertson was born in London on 16 January 1853, as the eldest of the eleven children of theatre critic and journalist John Forbes-Robertson and his wife Frances. One of his sisters, Frances, and three of his brothers, Ian, Norman and John, also became actors. He was the brother-in-law of famed actress Maxine Elliott, the uncle of economist Roy Harrod, and great-uncle of actress Meriel Forbes (granddaughter of his brother Norman), who married actor Ralph Richardson.
While intending to become an artist, he trained for three years at the Royal Academy, but reluctantly and for financial needs he began a theatrical career, when dramatist William Gorman Wills offered him a role in his play Mary Queen of Scots. His many performances led him into travel to the U.S., work with Sir Henry Irving, and moving in the highest aristocratic and cultural circles. In 1895 he took over the management of the Lyceum Theatre, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as leading lady. Here he gave memorable performances as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo, and produced himself Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande, in which his Romantic style of acting was highly successful.
Forbes-Robertson was hailed as one of the most individual and refined of English actors, noted for his ascetic features but even more for his fine elocution, particularly by George Bernard Shaw who wrote him the part of Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra, which premiered in March 1899 at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. Forbes-Robertson played opposite Gertrude Elliott as Cleopatra, both part of Mrs. Patrick Campbell's company. Other notable roles were Othello, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, and in particular his successful lead in Jerome K. Jerome’s The Passing of the Third Floor Back; performed on Broadway in 1908, filmed in 1916, and released in 1918. Forbes-Robertson did not play Hamlet until he was 44 years old, but after his success in this part he continued playing it until 1916, including a surviving silent film (1913), see www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4YVWqhPDr8 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk6qI40HjT0. Shaw considered him the greatest Hamlet he had ever seen. Hear Forbes-Robertson reciting Hamlet: www.britannica.com/biography/Johnston-Forbes-Robertson, also www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYR50uA8nU (recordings from 1928, when the actor was 75).
In the 1880s Forbes-Robertson acted in plays with the gifted actress Mary Anderson and asked her hand in marriage, but she kindly turned him down, though they remained friends. Later he and actress Beatrice Campbell enjoyed a brief affair during the time she starred with him in a series of Shakespearean plays in the mid-1890s. In 1900, at age 47, he married American-born actress Gertrude Elliott (1874–1950), sister of Maxine Elliott, with whom he had four daughters. Their second daughter Jean Forbes-Robertson became an accomplished actress. Through her he is the grandfather of actress Joanna Van Gyseghem. Johnston Forbes-Robertson was knighted in 1913 at the age of 60, at which point he retired from acting. He returned to the stage, however, for a farewell tour of the US in 1914-1915, making his last appearance onstage at the Sanders Theatre in Boston with a performance of Hamlet. In the last years of his life he produced plays by George Bernard Shaw and Jerome K. Jerome. His literary works include: The Life and Life-Work of Samuel Phelps (actor and theatre manager) as well as his own autobiography Johnston Forbes-Robertson: A Player Under Three Reigns (1925).
On November 6, 1937, Johnston Forbes-Robertson died at St. Margaret's Bay, near Dover, Kent, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London on November 9. Memorial services were held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London.
Sources: English Wikipedia, IMDB.