Edward Askew Sothern

Background

Edward was born on April 1, 1826 in Liverpool, England, seventh child in the large family of John Sothern, prosperous ship and colliery owner.

Education

He made attempts in London to study surgery and then theology, finally ending in a Liverpool ship-broker's office, but he was drawn strongly to the stage, first as an amateur, and in 1849, in Guernsey, as a professional.

Career

After his first engagement at the National Theatre, Boston, as Dr. Pangloss, in The Heir at Law, a part to which he was unsuited and in which he failed, he went to the old Howard Athenaeum, Boston, and then to Barnum's Museum in New York, where he toiled twice a day for a year. By 1854 he had sufficiently improved to be engaged by Lester Wallack, in whose New York company he acted for four years.

During this period he assumed his own name, and acted Armand to the Camille of Matilda Agnes Heron. At Laura Keene's theatre in 1858 he was cast for a small part in Our American Cousin. According to the story told by Joseph Jefferson, the younger, to E. H. Sothern, Sothern had resolved to give up the trifling part and go back to England, but Jefferson, who wished him to continue to share the expense of a stable for their riding horses, persuaded him to stay, on condition that Miss Keene permit him to build up his part.

Thus was born the role of Lord Dundreary, Sothern's most famous creation, little noticed for the first two weeks, but as time went on gradually usurping the whole play, so that Miss Keene and Jefferson took the original version, and let Sothern organize a new company for his version. The play was produced in America, October 18, 1858.

In 1861, when it was produced in London at the Haymarket, it became even more widely popular, and ran for 496 performances. The part was, as Andrew Carpenter Wheeler put it, "the elaboration of a negation, " in which the actor showed "the rich fulness of a vacuum". There had never been a similar British silly ass on the stage before, nor has there been since. It was sui generis, at once a comical burlesque and a thing of quaint and inexplicable dignity. The character had a mythical Brother Sam, whom Sothern later caused to be dramatized, as a sort of sequel.

He also produced, among other plays, Thomas W. Robertson's romantic David Garrick, and a version of Henry J. Byron's The Prompter's Box, called A Crushed Tragedian, in which his part of the old actor was a mingling of almost burlesque character-drawing and pathos. So firmly had Sothern's Dundreary fixed him in the public mind as a comedian, however, that the pathos seldom told at its true value.

After the first long run of Dundreary in London, he divided his time almost equally between the United States and England, touring through both countries with vast success, and carrying with him his entire company instead of depending on local stock companies for support.

He retained a home in London, however, and there he died of what was perhaps euphemistically called a nervous collapse, the result of a combination of hard professional labors and excessive conviviality. In spite of his twenty years of success, his estate was found to be less than $50, 000.

He died in London on the 21st of January 1881.

Achievements

• Edward Askew Sothern received his greatest fame in T. W. Robertson's David Garrick (1864), his acting in the title-part, which he created, was wonderfully effective. He won wide popularity also from his interpretation of Sam Slingsby in Oxenford's Brother Sam (1865). Sothern was a born comedian, and off the stage had a passion for practical joking that amounted almost to a mania. His house in Kensington was a resort for people of fashion, and he was as much a favourite in America as in the United Kingdom.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Birds of a Feather Flock Together, or, Talks with Sothern

Religion

But in his personal life he was spendthrift of his time and energies; he loved to ride and hunt and to be in convivial society, and he was perhaps the most noted practical joker of the day.

Personality

He had plentiful equipment for an actor - nervous sensibility, keen powers of observation, a lithe figure and handsome face, with keen, dominating blue eyes, a magnetic sense of fun, and in his professional work capacity for concentrated labor and minute attention to detail.

Quotes from others about the person

• The critic Clement Scott noted that Sothern was "a handsome a man as ever stood on the stage".

Interests

• He loved to ride and hunt and to be in convivial society, and he was perhaps the most noted practical joker of the day.

Connections

He married Frances Stewart, an actress, daughter of the Rev. R. I. Stewart, County Wexford, Ireland. She bore him four children, all of whom went on the stage: Lytton Edward, Eva Mary, George, and Edward Hugh Sothern. But Sothern's personal habits were not those conducive to domestic happiness, and long before his death his wife had separated from him. She died in 1882.

Father:

John Sothern

Spouse:

Frances Stewart

Daughter:

Eva Mary Sothern

Son:

George Sothern

Son:

E. Hugh Sothern

Son:

Edward Hugh Sothern

Son:

Lytton Edward Sothern

Friend:

Joseph Jefferson

References

• The Drama of Yesterday To-Day, Vol. 2 of 2 (Classic Reprint)
• Annals of the New York stage. 15 Volume Complete Set
• Gilbert and Sullivan: A Dual Biography by Michael Ainger (2002-11-21)
• Victorian Sensation: Or the Spectacular, the Shocking and the Scandalous in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Michael Diamond (2003-08-01)
• Yesterdays with Actors
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together; Or, Talks with Sothern;
• History of the American Stage: Containing Biographical Sketches of Nearly Every Member of the Profession That has Appeared on the American Stage, From 1733 to 1870
• A Memoir Of Edward Askew Sothern (1890)