Charles Robert Thorne

Background

Thorne was born on March 10, 1840 in New York City. He was the son of Charles Robert Thorne and Maria (Mestayer) Thorne.

Education

In 1847 he went to school in Boston, where his parents were playing. He was a student at St. John's (later Fordham) College, 1854-57, and is said to have been a "clerk" with his grandfather Thorne on Wall Street.

Career

In 1854, according to his own statement, he acted with his father in San Francisco, and soon afterwards went to Australia with his parents. It is certain that a C. Thorne was at the Bowery, New York, in September 1857, and "C. R. Thorne, Jr. ," was a full-fledged member of Joseph Jefferson's company at Laura Keene's Theatre, New York, May 16, 1860, and played Captain de Boots in Our American Cousin, July 23, 1860.

In September 1860 he supported Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams in New York, and then (like many other American actors when the Civil War began) he left the East. He played at McGuire's in San Francisco, quarreled with Edwin Forrest, and set out to find his father and mother in China. The year 1866 found him as leading man at the Boston Theatre, where he remained three years. Touring followed, and in 1871 he joined the Union Square Theatre company in New York, one of the best in the country, where for many years he enjoyed a great measure of popular success. Here he received good training, especially by Dion Boucicault in Led Astray, and a large salary.

In 1874 with Stuart Robson, he played Led Astray in London. In 1878 he acted in Bronson Howard's The Banker's Daughter. His last days were unfortunate. Late in 1882 he left the Union Square to be made a star in The Corsican Brothers, by John Stetson, the famous and eccentric Boston manager. The play opened at Booth's Theatre, New York, early in 1883 to a crowded and expectant house, but Thorne disappointed the audience by his acting, and the production was violently criticized. It quickly developed, however, that Thorne was not well. His illness accentuated by disappointment and the flaming success of young Richard Mansfield in A Parisian Romance at the Union Square where he had so long been regnant, he broke down completely and soon afterwards died. His funeral, at which the "cloud-capped towers" passage from The Tempest and a telegram from Robert Green Ingersoll were read for all ceremony, raised a teapot tempest difficult now to understand.

Achievements

• Charles Robert Thorne's best character was Daniel Rochat in the Sardou play by the same name.

Religion

Thorne was widely branded "atheist. "

One critic remarked, after his funeral, "Thorne didn't know enough to be an atheist"--which was another way of saying that he lacked the mental equipment required of the best actors.

Personality

Physically, he was of a ruddy but athletic type, looking a bit like a young hunting squire, and as the heroes of the domestic melodramas characteristic of the period he cut a great dash. He had a sonorous voice, which he made much use of. As one critic said after his appearance in 1880 as Sardou's Daniel Rochat, his style did not "lend itself to expressions of subtlety. " But he could suggest suppressed power, and audiences found him "sympathetic" and good to look at.

Connections

Thorne's first wife was a Miss Calder of Boston, whom he married early in 1859. After his wife secured a divorce in Indiana, Thorne married Mary (Smith) Brown of Philadelphia. He was survived by his wife and a daughter of his first marriage.

Father:

Charles Robert Thorne

Mother:

Maria (Mestayer) Thorne

Spouse:

Miss Calder

Sister:

Emily Jordan Chamberlain

Spouse (2):

Mary (Smith) Brown

References

• Genealogical Record of John Thorne: Also the Direct Descendants of James Thorne and Hannah Brown of Salisbury, Mass., And Kingston, N. H.; Also the Families Connected by Marriage (Classic Reprint)
• Annals of the New York stage