Sir Charles Wyndham  


THE TIMES
Monday Jan 13, 1919


OBITUARY
DEATH OF SIR CHARLES WYNDHAM
A NOTABLE STAGE CAREER
  Sir Charles Wyndham, the actor, died at 1:15 yesterday morning, in his 82nd year.   He had been confined to his bed for a week.   Sir Charles was about as usual last Friday week, but on the evening of that day he became unwell.   Influenza developed, and he gradually weakened until on Saturday he became unconscious.   Lady Wyndham was with him when he died.
  Charles Wyndham, the son of a London doctor, was born at Liverpool in March, 1837, and was educated at St. Andrews, Neuwied, and King's College, London, to follow in his father's profession.   His determination to go on stage was kept in check by his father until he should have taken his degree, and he duly became M.R.C.S. London.   He was free then to become an actor, having been for years an amateur player; but on the outbreak of the Civil War in America he crossed the Atlantic, and after some difficulty he obtained, thanks to the help of P. T. Barnum, an appointment as surgeon in the Federal Army.   He was present at the battles of Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, besides going all through the Red River campaign under General Banks.   His career as army surgeon was broken by a brief and
 
unsuccessful appearance on the stage at New York, in a company which included John Wilkes Booth (son of Junius Brutus Booth, and brother of Edwin Booth), who later assassinated President Lincoln.
  In 1865 he returned to England, and appeared in Manchester in a play of his own composition, and in the following year obtained an engagement at the Royalty Theatre, under Patty Oliver, where he played in Burnand's Black-eyed Susan and other famous burlesques and plays.   In those days he was an admirable dancer; and lightness and grace of movement were always characteristic of him.   It used to be said that he never carried a walking-stick, so that his hands and wrists might remain lissom.   Engagements with Miss Herbert at the St. James's Theatre, and in Manchester with the Calverts, for whom he played some of the lighter Shakespearian parts, led on to his inclusion in the famous company at the Queen's, Long-acre, which comprised also Toole, Irving, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, and Henrietta Hodson.   In 1868 he made a little excursion into management on his own account, and in 1869 he returned to America, with a repertory including The School for Scandal, Caste, The Heir-at-Law, and Still Waters Run Deep.   During this long visit he travelled all over the United States, in considerable discomfort but with much success; and it was in these four years that he picked up the play Saratoga, which, adapted for the English stage by Frank Marshall and renamed Brighton, was the founder of his fortunes and set him off upon a theatrical course in which he was unrivalled.
23 YEARS AT THE CRITERION
  After playing Brighton with immense success in several London theatres, Wyndham took it to the Criterion Theatre in December, 1875; and there he stayed for 23 years.   Brighton was followed by other lively farces - among them The Pink Domino and Betsy (in which Wyndham himself did not play); and for years the Criterion was the home of farce and Wyndham its unequalled performer and stage manager.   His grace and Vivacity were enchanting, and his lightness of touch relieved liveliness of offence.   Exceptions to the Palais Royal material of these early years were Gilbert's Foggerty's Fairy, which the public did not like, and Mr. J. H. McCarthy's political comedy from the French, The Candidate, which, being produced in 1884, the year of the third Reform Act, was very much liked indeed.   O'Keeffe's Wild Oats, revived in 1886, is worth mentioning because it was the occasion of the first appearance in his company of Miss Mary Moore, who remained his leading lady for many years, was his business partner all the remainder of his life, and
 
eventually became his second wife.   In the same year he produced David Garrick, which was ever afterwards his stand-by.   This was the piece that, translated by himself into German, he played in Berlin and other German towns, and in Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere, before crowned heads, Court circles, and enthusiastic crowds.
  As years went on Wyndham, losing none of his grace, his subtlety, and his charm, came to look for less rattling and lively material for his exquisite art; and the author who served him best was Mr. Henry Arthur Jones.   His famous series of Jones plays began with The Bauble Shop in 1893; later came The Case of Rebellious Susan, and best of all, The Liars - plays in which both the author and the actor reached their highest achievement.   The parts - middle-aged, humorous, passionate, self-controlled, and charming men - suited Wyndham to a nicety, and his ease of style and movement, his lightness of touch, his fine, eloquent face, and his beautiful diction were well employed in preaching morals which a large public were ready to accept as sound.
"WYNDHAM'S" and the "NEW"
  After 23 years at The Criteron he moved to the theatre which he had just built for himself and called by his own name.   He opened Wyndham's Theatre in 1899 with a revival of Rosemary, the pretty play in which he played the same man at 40 and at 90 years of age; and soon followed it with an adventure into romance, in an English version of Cyrano de Bergerac.   The adventure was not successful with the public, though so interesting a performance must have given some enjoyment to the actor.   Here, too, he produced another play by Mr. H. A. Jones, Mrs. Dane's Defence, which proved that light comedy was not the only kind of drama that he was capable of acting well.
  His last production at Wyndham's Theatre was a play by a new writer, Mrs. Gorring's Necklace, by Mr. Hubert Henry Davies; and when in 1903 he moved from Wyndham's to another theatre that he had just built back to back with it, the New, he produced, in Cousin Kate and Captain Drew on Leave, still better work by the same author, whose comedy, The Mollusc, was one of Wyndham's last new ventures on a brief return to the Criterion Theatre in 1910.
  His later years were mainly occupied in revivals of old successes; and his powers remained unimpaired well
 
into old age, until a loss of memory made it all but impossible for him to study new parts and extremely difficult to get up old ones anew.   His gradual retirement left the stage poorer by the disappearance of an actor of unfailing grace and charm, a thoroughly accomplished and secure artist in acting, and a stage manager, or "producer", of masterly skill.   The "Crystal Palace matinées," which he conducted for three years in the eighteen-seventies, and various brief managements at other theatres, gave him the opportunity of producing many plays, from the Greek drama to the American, which lay outside his regular field.   He played his part thoroughly in the support of control of the theatrical and other charities.   He made a handsome fortune out of the theatre, and invested it in theatres.   His acting was much liked at Court, where he was frequently commanded to play, and when in 1902 he was knighted by King Edward his gratification was shared by innumerable friends and admirers.
  Sir Charles Wyndham married, in 1860, a daughter of Mr. J. Silberred and granddaughter of Baron Silberrad, of Hesse-Darmstadt.   She died in January, 1916.   Afterwards Sir Charles, as already mentioned, married Mrs. Albery (Miss Mary Moore), widow of Mr. James Albery.