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Charles Hawtrey (actor, born 1858)

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For the later actor, seeCharles Hawtrey (actor, born 1914).

Charles Hawtrey inMoney(1911)
Cartoon inPunch,25 August 1920, showing Hawtrey accompanyingJoan Barry

Sir Charles Henry Hawtrey(21 September 1858 – 30 July 1923) was an English actor, director, producer andmanager.He pursued a successful career as an actor-manager, specialising in debonair, often disreputable, parts in popular comedies. He occasionally played inSheridanand other classics, but was generally associated with new works by writers includingOscar WildeandSomerset Maugham.

Born to a long-establishedcounty family,Hawtrey was one of three of his parents' five sons to pursue a theatrical career. Before going on the stage he had considered joining the army, but failed to apply himself to the necessary studies to qualify for a commission. Once established as an actor he quickly took on the additional role of a manager, boosted by an early success with his own adaptation of a German farce presented in London asThe Private Secretary,which made his fortune. A lifelong gambler, both with theatrical productions and on horseracing, to which he was addicted, he was bankrupted several times during his career.

Regarded as Britain's leading comedy actor of his generation, Hawtrey was mentor and role model to younger actors includingNoël Coward.Towards the end of his career Hawtrey starred in a handful of silent movies.

Early life[edit]

Charles Hawtrey, 1907

Hawtrey was born atSloughand educated atEton College,the fifth son and eighth of the ten children of the Rev. John William Hawtrey and his first wife, Frances Mary Anne,néeProcter. The Hawtrey family had a long association with Eton; at the time of Hawtrey's birth his father was a housemaster there, and a cousin,Edward Craven Hawtrey,wasProvost.[1]At the age of eight Hawtrey entered the lower school of the college. Three years later John Hawtrey left Eton to found St Michael's School, Slough; Hawtrey was educated there from 1869 to 1872, when he returned to Eton for a year, before moving toRugby.As a schoolboy he became known as "a sportsman of dash and endurance".[1]At the age of fourteen he became a keen follower of horse-racing, a lifelong obsession that continually disrupted his finances. He commented that his first encounter with racing was "a fatal day for me. I had one bet and lost half-a-crown, and I have been trying for fifty years to win it back."[2]

From Rugby, Hawtrey went briefly to acrammerin London, to study for a career in the army, but soon abandoned the idea. He worked as a private tutor from 1876 to 1879 and then he began his theatrical career. It started badly: he broke his collar-bone while playing football and had to withdraw from the cast before the opening night.[3]In February 1881 he matriculated atPembroke College, Oxford,[4]but withdrew in October, having been cast in the supporting role of Edward Langton inF. C. Burnand'sThe Colonelat thePrince of Wales's Theatre,London. Uncertain of success, he temporarily adopted the stage name Charles Bankes. He was well received in the play, and was given valuable lessons in stagecraft from the producer:

He taught me a great many elementary rules which were most helpful – such as the actions of my hands and arms, walking on the stage, holding myself as easily as I could, and above all things he would never let me put my hands in my pockets. Of course my hands always felt like two great hams and I never knew what to do with them, but I found that eventually I forgot all about them and then they behaved naturally![5]

Actor-manager[edit]

In early 1882 Hawtrey played Jack Merryweather inThe Marble Arch,which starredHerbert Beerbohm Tree.Later in that year he toured inThe Colonelin a cast headed byCharles Collette.[6]Two of Hawtrey's brothers, William andGeorge(father of the economistRalph Hawtrey),[7][8]had also become actors, and in early 1883, Charles and William led a small touring company to towns in south-east England.[9]

Hawtrey in what theIllustrated London Newscalled "essentially a Charles Hawtrey part", inInconstant George(1910)

In 1884 Hawtrey had a huge success in London presenting his own adaptation of a German farce by Gustav von Moser,Der Bibliothekar,rewritten asThe Private Secretarywith the action moved to an English setting. It opened in March to disparaging reviews and at first played to small audiences, but Hawtrey persisted and further rewrote the play. It moved from the Prince's to theGlobe Theatre,the principal roles were recast (with Hawtrey playing the crusty old Cattermole), and in the words ofThe Manchester Guardian"the audiences steadily laughed it into a success."[10]The production ran for 785 performances,[11]and Hawtrey made £123,000 from it – an enormous sum for those days.[1][n 1]The play was revived in London eight times during his life.[13]

Hawtrey pursued a career as anactor-manager,making a speciality of suave, sometimes immoral, but likable characters. His managerial career was chequered: great successes were often followed by expensive failures, and he was bankrupt several times. He was in charge over the years at eighteen London theatres – including the Globe until 1887 and two spells at theComedy Theatre,1887–93 and 1896–98. He staged, "with great attention to detail",[1]about a hundred plays. His biographers H H Child and Michael Read list his most celebrated productions as two more adaptations from Moser (The Pickpocket,1886, adapted by George Hawtrey, andThe Arabian Nights,1887, bySydney Grundy);Jane(1890) by Harry Nicholls andWilliam Lestocq;One Summer's Day(1897) by H. V. Esmond;Lord and Lady Algy(1898) byR. C. Cartonco-starring with the author's wife,Katherine Compton;[14]A Message from Mars(1899) by Richard Ganthony;The Man from Blankley's(1906) byF. Anstey;andAmbrose Applejohn's Adventure(1921) by Walter Hackett, in which Hawtrey played two roles: a respectable modern man and his disreputable ancestor.[1][9]Hawtrey's career was long enough to allow him to create leading roles in plays byOscar Wildein the 1890s andSomerset Maughamafter the First World War – he was Wilde's Lord Goring inAn Ideal Husband(1895) and William in Maugham'sHome and Beauty(1919).[1]In between his successes he went bankrupt several times, and on one occasion discharged his debts by successfully gambling atbaccarat.[15]

After the war Hawtrey appeared occasionally in silent films:A Message From Mars(1913) as Horace Parker,Honeymoon for Three(1915) as Prince Ferdinand, andMasks and Faces(1918) withGeorge Alexander,George Bernard ShawandJ. M. Barrie.

Poster from a performance of Hawtrey'sThe Private Secretaryat theRoyal Lyceum Theatre,Edinburgh in 1886

Hawtrey was generous in fostering talent. Among the young actors whose careers he encouraged wasNoël Coward,who wrote in his memoirs about "the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day."[16]One of the dramatists that he promoted wasHorace Newtewhose one act dramaA Labour of LoveHawtrey presented at The Comedy Theatre in 1897.[17]

Personal life[edit]

Hawtrey was twice married. His first wife, whom he married on 3 June 1886, was Madeline ( "Mae" ) Harriet,néeSheriffe; he left her in 1891 and she divorced him in 1893.[18]She died in 1905. In 1909 his then partner, Olive Morris, bore him a son,Anthony Hawtrey.[1]On 10 November 1919 Hawtrey married the Hon Mrs Albert Petre (néeKatherine Elsie Clark), daughter of the RevWilliam Robinson Clarkand widow of the youngest son of the 11th Baron Petre. There were no children of either of his marriages. His second wife died on 14 November 1930. According toAda Coleman,head bartender at theSavoy HotelLondon, Hawtrey was responsible for naming theHanky-Panky cocktail,which she created specifically for him.

Last years and posterity[edit]

From 1920 Hawtrey's health deteriorated.[19]He wasknightedin1922.He died, aged 64, on 30 July 1923 and is buried atRichmond.His memoirs were edited by Maugham and published in 1924 asThe Truth at Last.[20]He is mentioned in the opening line of the Beatles song "Two of Us".

Notes and references[edit]

Notes
  1. ^Hawtrey liked to claim that he introduced the queueing system to the West End, to control the crowds who came to see the play,[9]butRichard D'Oyly Cartehad anticipated him by three years, instituting queueing at theSavoy Theatrein 1881.[12]
References
  1. ^abcdefgRead, Michael,"Hawtrey, Sir Charles Henry (1858–1923)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition, May 2008, retrieved 27 September 2013(subscription orUK public library membershiprequired)
  2. ^Hawtrey, p. 32
  3. ^Hawtrey, p. 88
  4. ^Foster, Joseph(1888–1892)."Hawtrey, Charles Henry".Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886.Oxford: Parker and Co – viaWikisource.
  5. ^Hawtrey, p. 104
  6. ^Morley, p.
  7. ^Black, R. D. Collison (2004)."Hawtrey, Sir Ralph George (1879–1975), economist".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31212.ISBN978-0-19-861412-8.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  8. ^The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, Essex volume, Melville Henry Massue, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1994 (reprint), p. 611
  9. ^abcChild, H H."Hawtrey, Sir Charles Henry",Dictionary of National Biography, 1937, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography archive, retrieved 27 September 2013(subscription orUK public library membershiprequired)
  10. ^"Theatre Royal",The Manchester Guardian,14 April 1885, p. 6
  11. ^Parker, p. 1198
  12. ^Cellier, p. 129
  13. ^Parker, p. 1153
  14. ^"Lord and Lady Algy",The Era,23 April 1898, p. 15
  15. ^Morley, pp. 167–168
  16. ^Coward, p. 66
  17. ^At the Play. The Observer 25 July 1897
  18. ^"Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division",The Times,20 April 1893, p. 3
  19. ^Morley, p. 169
  20. ^Hawtrey,passim

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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