Background

Chauncey Olcott was born on July 21, 1859, in Buffalo, New York. His father was Mellon W. Olcott.

Education

Chauncey Olcott was educated in the public schools at Buffalo.

Career

Chauncey Olcott made his first public appearance at the Academy of Music in Buffalo. In the later seventies he was appearing with traveling companies of entertainers and in 1880 he found employment with R. M. Hooley, well-known manager of minstrel shows. In 1882 he joined the Haverly Minstrels, and was also with the Thatcher, Primrose, and West Minstrels, and the Carncross Minstrels in Philadelphia. His voice had developed into a light tenor. While a "black face, " he frequently sang "When the Robins Nest Again, " to the great delight of audiences.

Olcott's musical ability led him into other fields. For a time he sang in The Old Homestead, and also with the Duff Opera company. In 1891 he went to England and in London secured an Irish romantic role in a light opera, Miss Decima, at the Criterion Theatre. His success in this role suggested to him his future career, and on his return to the United States he joined forces with August Pitou, who both managed his tours and sometimes wrote his plays, and succeeded to the mantle of W. J. Scanlan as a star in Irish musical dramas. One of his first acts on his return to the United States was to introduce the song "Mother Machree. " In 1894 he appeared in The Irish Artist, for which he wrote both the words and music, and in 1896 in Edmund Burke, and so on in a long list of now quite forgotten sentimental and romantic Irish comedies, with plentiful songs. Some of the songs he made famous were "I Love the Name of Mary, " and "My Wild Irish Rose"; the latter he himself wrote. His success continued for two decades.

Olcott did not as a rule play in the so-called "first-class" theatres, at top prices, but in the more popular houses, at popular prices, and his audiences were to a great extent composed of men and women - especially women - of his own race. But they were immensely loyal, and responded to him year after year.

In spite of the fact that he was both a tenor and an Irishman, Olcott had a good business sense, so that he not only made but saved a tidy fortune. He built a summer house at Saratoga Springs, which was a tasteful adaptation of colonial architecture to modern summer living, with a charming garden, and it was widely copied by other home builders.

There was, of course, a limit to the romantic appeal of even an Irish tenor, and after the World War Olcott's popularity waned. He reappeared in 1924, in a revival of The Rivals, however, in which Mrs. Fiske played Mrs. Malaprop, and he played Sir Lucius, and in the course of the play he sang a song, always followed by tumultuous and laughing applause by the audiences. In 1925 he was taken sick and never recovered. He went to Monte Carlo to live, where he died in March 1932 of anemia.

Achievements

• Chauncey Olcott wrote songs for musicals: Sweet Inniscara (1897), A Romance of Athlone (1899), Garrett O'Magh (1901), and Old Limerick Town (1902). Olcott together with Ernest Ball and George Graff produced the hit songs: My Irish Rose, Mother Machree, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, In the Sun shine of Your Love, and Tic Tac Toe. Olcott's life story was filmed by Warner Bros. motion picture, My Wild Irish Rose, in the 1947. The film's plot was based on the biography by Rita Olcott, Song in His Heart (1939). Olcott was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Young Men in Harmony A Collection of Favorite Songs Arranged in the Barbershop Style for Male Quartets and Choruses

    (Contents: My Wild Irish Rose, Honey - Little "Lize Medley...)

  • My Land, An Irish Song in Chauncey Olcott's Song Successes in His New Production: Macushla by Rita Johnson Young

    (My Land in Chauncey Olcott's Song Successes in His New Pr...)

  • Ireland at the Conn Organ Featuring the Arrangements of Mark Laub

    (Songs include - BELIEVE ME IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG C...)

  • When Irish Eyes are smiling.

    (Sheet Music)

  • My Wild Irish Rose
  • The Laugh with a Tear in it ... Song. Words and music by C. Olcott and M. Klein

Connections

Chauncey Olcott was married twice. His second wife was Margaret O'Donovan of San Francisco, to whom he was married on Sept. 28, 1897.

Father:

Mellon W. Olcott

Mother:

Margaret (Doyle) Olcott

Wife:

Cora Estell (Henderson) Olcott

Wife:

Margaret (O'Donovan) Olcott

References

• America's Irish Music Plus the Story of Chauncey Olcott, America's Beloved Irish Tenor (March 1985) (Sheet Music Magazine Easy Organ)
• Song In His Heart