Edward Askew Sothern
Encyclopedia
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
known for his comic
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
roles in Britain and America, particularly Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary is a character of the 1858 British play Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor. He is the personification of a good-natured, brainless aristocrat. The role was created on stage by Edward Askew Sothern. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier...
in Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
.
Early years
Sothern was born in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, the son of a merchant. He began studying medicine, and his parents hoped that he would become a minister, but he decided against pursuing those professions. He worked as a clerk in the late 1840s and married Frances Emily "Fannie" Stewart (d. 1882). He began acting as an amateur in 1848 under the stage name of Douglas Stewart. In 1849 he appeared in his first professional engagement at Saint Helier
Saint Helier
Saint Helier is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St. Helier has a population of about 28,000, roughly 31.2% of the total population of Jersey, and is the capital of the Island . The urban area of the parish of St...
in Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
, as Claude Melnotte in Bulwer Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
's Lady of Lyons. In the early 1850s, he played in various English companies without particular success in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
and Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
.
Sothern travelled to America in 1852, first playing Dr. Pangloss in The Heir-at-Law in Boston, Massachusetts, with John Lacy's company at the National Theatre
National Theatre (Boston, Massachusetts)
The National Theatre was a theatre in the West End of Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. William Pelby established the enterprise in 1836, and presented productions of "original pieces, and the efforts of a well selected stock company, which, with few exceptions, have been American....
. He then played at the Howard Athenaeum
Howard Athenaeum
The Howard Athenæum in Boston, Massachusetts, was one of the most famous theaters in Boston history. Founded in 1845, it remained an institution of culture and learning for most of its years, finally closing in 1953.- History :...
in Boston and at Barnum's American Museum
Barnum's American Museum
Barnum's American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in New York City, USA, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P.T. Barnum and his partner and original owner, John Scudder. Prior to their partnership, the museum was known as Scudder's American...
in New York. In 1854, he joined the company at Wallack's Theatre
Wallack's Theatre
Wallack’s Theatre , located on 254 West 42nd Street in New York, United States, was opened on December 5, 1904 by Oscar Hammerstein I. Wallack’s was Hammerstein’s 8th production theatre and was originally known as the "Lew Fields'", a name that Hammerstein gave it in recognition of his favourite...
. In the early part of his career, Sothern's wife often performed with him. By 1856, he had begun using his own name, Sothern, on stage. He had become associated with Laura Keene
Laura Keene
Laura Keene was a British-born American stage actress and manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York.-Early life:...
's company in New York by 1856. He finally gained attention at Wallack's Theatre
Wallack's Theatre
Wallack’s Theatre , located on 254 West 42nd Street in New York, United States, was opened on December 5, 1904 by Oscar Hammerstein I. Wallack’s was Hammerstein’s 8th production theatre and was originally known as the "Lew Fields'", a name that Hammerstein gave it in recognition of his favourite...
in New York starring as Armand in Camille. The critic Clement Scott
Clement Scott
Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...
noted that while Sothern was "as handsome a man as ever stood on the stage", he was not naturally suited to romantic roles.
Our American Cousin
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...
's Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
at Laura Keene
Laura Keene
Laura Keene was a British-born American stage actress and manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York.-Early life:...
's Theatre. This piece would later become famous as the play that Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
was watching when he was assassinated. Sothern's role was Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary
Lord Dundreary is a character of the 1858 British play Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor. He is the personification of a good-natured, brainless aristocrat. The role was created on stage by Edward Askew Sothern. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier...
, a caricature of a brainless English nobleman. At first, he was reluctant to accept the role; it was so small and unimportant that he felt it beneath him and feared it might damage his reputation. He mentioned his qualms to his friend, Joseph Jefferson
Joseph Jefferson
Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson , was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all American comedians....
, who had been cast in the leading role of Asa Trenchard in the play. Jefferson supposedly responded with the famous line: "There are no small parts, only small actors."
On 15 October 1858, Our American Cousin premiered in New York. After a couple of unhappy weeks in the small role, Sothern began portraying the role as a lisping, skipping, eccentric, weak-minded fop prone to nonsensical references to sayings of his "bwother" Sam. His ad-libs were a sensation, earning good notices for his physical comedy and spawning much imitation and merry mockery on both sides of the Atlantic. His exaggerated, droopy side-whiskers became known as "Dundrearys". Sothern gradually expanded the role, adding gags and business until it became the central figure of the play. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier brother. The play ran for 150 nights, which was very successful for a New York run at the time. Sothern made his London debut in the role when the play ran for 496 performances at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
in 1861, earning rave reviews. The Athenaeum
Athenaeum (magazine)
The Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. It had a reputation for publishing the very best writers of the age....
wrote, "it is certainly the funniest thing in the world... a vile caricature of a vain nobleman, intensely ignorant, and extremely indolent".
Dundreary became a popular recurring character, and Sothern successfully revived the play many times, making Dundreary by far his most famous role. A number of spin-off works were also created, including H. J. Byron's Dundreary Married and Done For and Charles Gayler's sequel, Our American Cousin at Home, or, Lord Dundreary Abroad (1859 at Keene's Theatre, starring Sothern). Sothern wrote his own play, Suspense, produced for Keene's 1860-61 season. He won wide popularity from his interpretation of Sam Slingsby in John Oxenford
John Oxenford
John Oxenford , English dramatist, was born at Camberwell, London, England.-Life:He began his literary career by writing on finance...
's Brother Sam (1862; revived in 1865), a play about Dundreary's brother.
1860s and 1870s
In 1864, Sothern created the title role in Tom RobertsonThomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson , usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S...
's David Garrick
David Garrick (play)
David Garrick is a comic play written in 1864 by Thomas William Robertson about the famous 18th century actor and theatre manager, David Garrick....
at the Haymarket Theatre. The play was a great success. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
praised Sothern's acting in the Act II scene where Sothern depicted "the most extravagant form of drunkenness... perpetually brought into contact with the real agony of mind which is now on the point of casting aside the mask of debauchery". He also appeared in Robertson's Home and later claimed to have written some of the best scenes in each work (a claim that was disputed by Robertson). Other plays written for the now-famous Sothern were The Woman in Mauve, by Watts Phillips; The Favourite of Fortune and A Hero of Romance by Westland Marston
John Westland Marston
John Westland Marston was an English dramatist.Born in Boston, Lincolnshire, Marston wrote several plays, including Strathmore and Marie de Méranie...
; A Lesson for Life by Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...
; and An English Gentleman by H. J. Byron (1871) at the Haymarket. Sothern continued to act mostly in London until 1876, but also toured extensively in the British provinces, North America and Europe.
Sothern became popular with Robertson's crowd, including with the Haymarket's manager, John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826....
, actor J. L. Toole, and dramatists Byron and W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, who later wrote three plays for him, Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith
Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith is a play by W. S. Gilbert, styled "A Three-Act Drama of Puritan times". It opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 11 September 1876, starring Hermann Vezin, Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Marion Terry. The play was a success, running for about 100 performances and...
(1876), The Ne'er-do-Weel
The Ne'er-do-Weel
The Ne'er-do-Weel is a three-act drama written by the English dramatist W. S. Gilbert. It is the second of three plays that he wrote at the request of the actor Edward Sothern. The story concerns Jeffery Rollestone, a gentleman who becomes a vagabond after Maud, the girl he loves, leaves him. He...
(1878), and Foggerty's Fairy
Foggerty's Fairy
Foggerty's Fairy, subtitled "An Entirely Original Fairy Farce", is a three-act farce by W.S. Gilbert based loosely on Gilbert's short story, "The Story of a Twelfth Cake", which was published in the Christmas Number of The Graphic in 1874, and elements of other Gilbert plays...
(1881). He was known as a sportsman and bon vivant and became famous for his magic tricks, conversation and, especially, his practical jokes (he was born on April fool's day). Sothern and his friends demanded that clerks sell them goods not carried by the store in question, staged mock arguments on public omnibuses, ran fake advertisements in newspapers, paid street urchins to annoy passers-by and so forth. At one restaurant, Toole and Sothern removed the silver and hid under the table. When the unfortunate waiter found the dining room empty and the silver gone, he ran to report the theft. By the time he returned, Toole and Sothern had re-set the table as if nothing had happened.
Sothern left England to tour in America in early 1876 and wrote to Gilbert to be ready with a play by October that would feature him in a serious role. This play eventually became Dan'l Druce. However, Sothern produced but did not star in the play. Gilbert soon wrote another play for Sothern, this time a comedy, The Ne'er-do-Weel. Sothern was not pleased with the work, and Gilbert offered to take it back. Although it was eventually produced, Sothern did not appear in it. Sothern had already paid Gilbert for the play, and Gilbert was unable immediately to pay him back. After various arrangements between Gilbert and Sothern involving American productions of another Gilbert play, Engaged
Engaged (play)
Engaged is a three-act farcical comic play by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Haymarket Theatre on 3 October 1877, the same year as The Sorcerer, one of Gilbert's comic operas written with Arthur Sullivan, which was soon followed by the collaborators' great success in H.M.S. Pinafore...
(1877), Gilbert finally promised, in 1878, to write a new play for Sothern. This was to be Foggerty's Fairy.
Sothern's biographer T. Edgar Pemberton noted that one role he regretted not playing was Cheviot in Engaged. Sothern continued to tour and perform Dundreary and other works. In October 1877 at the Academy of Music in New York, he played the title role in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
.
Sothern's next great role was the title role, Fitzaltamont, in a hit revival of Byron's The Crushed Tragedian (1878, originally named The Prompter's Box) at the Haymarket. The Era admired "the sepulchral tones, the glaring eyeballs, the long hair, the wonderful 'stage walk', the melodramatic attitudes" of his portrayal. He next appeared in The Hornet's Nest by Byron at the Haymarket. The Crushed Tragedian was not a great success in London, but it became a hit in New York. The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
raved, "With what elaboration of detail does the actor embody his conception! There is not a gesture, not an intonation, not a movement, but seems to illustrate the character portrayed. He strides across the stage and it is as though he were wading through a sea of gore; he mutters to himself ‘Ha! ha!’ and you know that he is cursing fate with a bitterness loud and deep." always and in all things poor Altamont is exquisitely, indescribably ludicrous." In April 1879, he was still at the Haymarket, appearing in Lord Lytton's play Money as Sir Frederick Blount.
Last years and family
In the autumn of 1879, after a long summer fishing trip, Sothern was on another AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
tour. The Era wrote in October 1979 that "It is proposed, during Mr Sothern's [American] engagement, to bring out revivals of The Crushed Tragedian, Dundreary, and David Garrick, the new comedy by Mr Gilbert being reserved for the spring engagement." On February 29, 1880 The Era reported: "Mr Sothern says that, although his new comedy, by Mr Gilbert, has cost him 3,000 guineas
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
, he would not take 6,000 guineas for it now. It is a piece of the wildest absurdity ever perpetrated, and all the parts are immense." The same issue of The Era states that definite plans had been made for Sothern to appear at the Gaiety Theatre, London
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
in Foggerty's Fairy
Foggerty's Fairy
Foggerty's Fairy, subtitled "An Entirely Original Fairy Farce", is a three-act farce by W.S. Gilbert based loosely on Gilbert's short story, "The Story of a Twelfth Cake", which was published in the Christmas Number of The Graphic in 1874, and elements of other Gilbert plays...
, as the new play was now called, in October 1880, after the end of his American tour. Sothern had been ill for much of the time since the fall, although he fulfilled his performing commitments. Sothern returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for a six week holiday in June 1880, still planning to produce Fogerty's Fairy in New York. After one illness and a short European tour, Sothern fell seriously ill in the fall, and his health declined until he died in January 1881, never having performed Gilbert's play.
Sothern died at his home in Cavendish Square, London, at the age of 54 and is buried in Southampton Old Cemetery
Southampton Old Cemetery
Southampton Old Cemetery is a cemetery located in Southampton, England.The cemetery has had various titles including The Cemetery by the Common, Hill Lane Cemetery and is currently known as Southampton Old Cemetery. An Act of Parliament was required in 1843 to acquire the land from Southampton...
, Southampton. Sothern was such a notorious practical joker that many of his friends missed his funeral, thinking it was a joke. His sister, Mary Cowan, was the principal beneficiary of his last will, signed shortly before his death. A previous will had given most of the estate to his widow and children. Sothern's widow contested the will but lost, and it took Cowan until 31 May 1881 to obtain probate. Gilbert suggested that she "underlet" Foggerty's Fairy to him, and he eventually had it produced. Later, she wrote to him: "Allow me to say that of all the people with whom I have had any dealings in reference to money since my Brother's death, you have treated me with the greatest kindness & fairness & I feel grateful to you for sparing me any trouble or anxiety."
Sothern and his wife had four children, all of whom became actors: Lytton Edward (1851–1887), Edward Hugh (E. H.), George Evelyn Augustus T. (b. 1870; who used the stage name Sam Sothern) and Eva Mary. E. H. Sothern became prominent on the American stage. Sothern's house in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, London was a resort for people of fashion, and he was as much a favourite in America as in the United Kingdom.
Famous hoax
Sothern's passion for practical joking amounted almost to a mania. When the husband of actress Adelaide NeilsonAdelaide Neilson
Lilian Adelaide Neilson , born Elizabeth Ann Brown, was an English stage actress.-Early life:Neilson was the daughter of a strolling actress, named Brown, and was born, out of wedlock, at 35 St Peters Square Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire...
, Philip Henry Lee, visited New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in the mid-19th century, he had been warned about the wild behaviour of American authors, but gathered that it was a joke. Sothern assured him it was true and arranged a private dinner for Lee with twelve "writers and critics" (who were really actors). During the dinner, an altercation arose over the passing of the mustard with a fight breaking out, the men brandished both knives and revolvers. The room was filled with shouts, shots, and struggle. Someone thrust a knife into Lee's hand, saying, "Defend yourself! This is butchery, sheer butchery." Sothern advised him to "Keep cool, and don't get shot." The performance ended with Lee hidden behind a door as the real police burst in because of all the commotion.