Charles Albert Fechter

Background

He was born, probably in London, on the 23rd of October 1824, of French parents, although his mother was of Piedmontese and his father of German extraction.

Education

He attended classes at the Conservatoire with the view of gaining admission to the Comedie Franqaise. Late in 1844 he won the grand medal of the Académie des Beaux-Arts with a piece of sculpture, and made his debut at the Comédie-Française as Seide in Voltaire's Mahomet and Valère in Molière's Tartuffe.

Career

As a boy he had ambitions to be a sculptor but discovered his talent accidentally while appearing in some private theatricals. In 1841 he joined a travelling company that was going to Italy. The tour was a failure, and the company broke up; Fechter returned home and resumed the study of sculpture. He acquitted himself with credit; but, tired of the small parts he found himself condemned to play, returned again to his sculptor's studio in 1846. In that year he accepted an engagement to play with a French company in Berlin, where he made his first decisive success as an actor. He had appeared for some months in London, in a season of French classical plays given at the St James's theatre. In Paris for the next ten years he fulfilled a series of successful engagements at various theatres. For nearly two years (1857 - 1858) Fechter was manager of the Odeon, where he produced Tartuffe and other classical plays. Having received tempting offers to act in English at the Princess's theatre, London, he made a diligent study of the language, and appeared there on the 27th of October 1860 in an English version of Victor Hugo's Ruy Bias. This was followed by The Corsican Brothers and Don Cesar de Bazan; and by the 20th of March 1861 he first attempted Hamlet. The result was an extraordinary triumph, the play running for 115 nights. This was followed by Othello, in which he played alternately the Moor and Iago. In 1863 he became lessee of the Lyceum theatre, which he opened with The Duke's Motto; this was followed by The King's Butterfly, The Mountebank (in which his son Paul, a boy of seven, appeared), The Roadside Inn, The Master of Ravenswood, The Corsican Brothers (in the original French version, in which he had created the parts of Louis and Fabian dei Franchi) and The Lady of Lyons. After this he appeared at the Adelphi (1868) as Obenreizer in No Thoroughfare, by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, as Edmond Dantes in Monte Cristo, and as Count de Leyrac in Black and White, a play in which the actor himself collaborated with Wilkie Collins. In 1870 he visited the United States, where (with the exception of a visit to London in 1872) he remained till his death. His first appearance in New York was at Niblo's Garden in the title role of Ruy Bias. He played in the United States between 1870 and 1876 and in most of the parts in which he had won his chief triumphs in England, were rarely successful, owing to his ungovernable temper. The last three years of his life were spent in seclusion on a farm which he had bought at Rockland Centre, near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 5th of August 1879.

Achievements

• His chief triumph being his creation at the Vaudeville on the 2nd of February 1852 of the part of Armand Duval in La Dame aux camelias. A bust of the actor by himself is in the Garrick Club, London.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Monte Cristo: A Drama, In Five Acts (1868)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Black and white, a drama in three acts

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Connections

He married, 29 November 1847, Mlle. Rolbert, a pensionnaire of the Comédie Française, Paris, by whom he had two children.

Son:

Paul

Wife:

Mlle. Rolbert

Daughter:

Marie

She was an operatic singer.

References

• Charles Albert Fechter (Classic Reprint)
• Charles Albert Fechter