Ira Frederick Aldridge was born about 1805, probably in New York City, New York, United States, although his birthplace is also given as Belair, near Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The accounts of his early life are conflicting. His father, Joshua Aldridge, is variously described as a Negro ship-carpenter and as a full-blooded African chieftain who had been brought to the United States, educated, and settled as a pastor over a colored church.
Young Aldridge was educated at Schenectady, New York, and Glasgow, Scotland. According to the usual account, when Edmund Kean made his first visit to America, Ira Aldridge became his personal attendant and later accompanied him back to England, where, encouraged by Kean, he studied for the stage.
Aldridge made his debut in 1826 as Othello at the Royalty Theatre, London, with considerable success. Highly praised by Kean, and nicknamed the "African Roscius, " he was next seen at the Coburg and other metropolitan theatres, afterward touring the English and Irish provinces. At Belfast, Charles Kean played Iago to his Othello. At some time subsequent to 1830 Aldridge appeared unsuccessfully at the "Mud Theatre" in Baltimore. Returning to London, he played at Covent Garden (1833), the Lyceum, and the Surrey. His last London engagements were in 1858 and 1865. Among his roles were Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Aaron (Titus Andronicus), Zanga (The Revenge), Gambia (The Slave), Rolla (Pizarro), and Mungo (The Padlock).
In 1853 he went to the Continent, visiting Switzerland and Germany, in which latter country he stayed three years. In Germany he acted in English, while his supporting players spoke their lines in German. Crowded houses greeted him everywhere, princes and people eager to see the colored tragedian.
He became an English citizen in 1863. For the last ten years of his life he played mainly on the Continent, where he accumulated a considerable fortune.
He died in Lodz, Poland, while on his way to fill an engagement in St. Petersburg.
Aldridge was generally regarded as one of the ablest and most faithful interpreters of Shakespeare of his day. Honors, orders, and medals were showered upon him. The King of Prussia wrote him an autograph letter accompanying the first-class medal for art and science. The Emperor of Austria conferred on him the Grand Cross of Leopold. At Berne he received the Medal of Merit. Aldridge was also the only African-American actor honoured with bronze plaques at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Aldridge was a member of the Imperial and Archducal Order of Our Lady of the Manger in Austria, and an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Beaux Arts in St. Petersburg.
Quotes from others about the person
"He dispenses with the black gloves usually worn by the Othello of the theatre and displays his own black hands with his finger-nails expressly apparent. " - the critic of the London Athenaeum
In 1824 Aldridge married Margaret Gill, an English woman. They were married for 40 years until her death in 1864. A year after Margaret's death, on April 20, 1865, Aldridge married his mistress, the self-styled Swedish countess Amanda von Brandt.
