Henry John Wallack was a British actor, stage manager, and brother of actor James William Wallack.
Background
Henry John Wallack was born in London, England, and was the eldest child of William H. and Elizabeth (Field) Granger Wallack. His father was of Jewish ancestry. The family were all theatrical; Mrs. Wallack had for a time been David Garrick's leading woman, and the best traditions of the eighteenth-century English stage were bred into her descendants. Her four children by Wallack - Henry John, James Willliam, Mary, and Elizabeth - all became actors, and all save Elizabeth spent sometime in the United States.
Education
He had an uneventful early training.
Career
Henry Wallack had by his twenty-eighth year become so noted an actor in England that he was engaged for a long American contract, and made his début in Baltimore in 1819. After long stays in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, Wallack first played in New York in May 1821 at the Anthony Street Theatre. Notices of this first engagement show that he appeared in such rôles as those of Brutus, Octavian, Rob Roy, Coriolanus, Captain Bertram in Fraternal Discord, and Gambia in the opera The Slave. The New York Mirror (June 5, 1824) said of him, "Few men possess so noble a person or a more intelligent and beautiful countenance; the expression of his eye is quick and full of meaning--his movements are easy and correct - his voice mellow and musical. " After the birth of her daughter Fanny in 1822, Mrs. Wallack became a dramatic actress and was attached to the Park Theatre for ten years. She was the mother of Wallack's three children - James William, Julia (Mrs. Hoskins), and Fanny (Mrs. Charles Moorhouse), all well-known actors. After an extended tour of the country, Wallack became leading man of the Chatham Garden Theatre in 1824. He returned to England in 1828-32 and 1834-36, acting in the latter period as stage manager and leading actor at Covent Garden. When his brother James opened the National Theatre in New York in September 1837, Henry was his stage manager, and acted important rôles. In the autumn of 1839 he appeared opposite Edwin Forrest in several parts, such as Iago to Forrest's Othello. On November 25 of that year he and his second wife began a long engagement at the New Chatham Theatre. On December 23 Wallack's two daughters made their débuts there with their father in The Hunchback. Fanny was an actress of unusual talent; Julia spent most of her time thereafter in opera. In the summer of 1840 Wallack returned to England, where in 1843 he rented Covent Garden for a short and disastrous season. He appeared again in America, as Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal, in September 1847 when the Wallacks opened the Broadway Theatre, and throughout that season his daughter Fanny was leading lady there. Wallack spent most of his latter years in the United States, dying in New York at the age of eighty. One of his last appearances was as Falstaff in 1858.
Achievements
He played a tremendous and varied repertoire during his lifetime, his parts ranging from the chief Shakespearean heroes to Rolla in Pizarro, Fagin in Oliver Twist, and Anthony Absolute in The Rivals.
Connections
He was married two times: first, to Fanny Jones, an actress. His wife obtained a divorce about 1833, and about a year later Wallack married Miss Turpin, a singer. He had two daughters, Julia Wallack, a vocalist, and Fanny Wallack, an actress.
