Background
James William Wallack was born in London, England on August 24, 1795.
James William Wallack was born in London, England on August 24, 1795.
He made his first appearance at the age of four at the Royal Circus in a fairyland pantomime. His father wished him to follow a naval career, but young Wallack was so unhappy at the prospect, so eager to be an actor that the father relented. At twelve the boy appeared with the troupe of the Academic Theatre in London, where plays were given with casts of children. His vigorous and capable performance attracted the notice, it is said, of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist, who obtained for him a place in the company of the Drury Lane Theatre. There Master Wallack rose in favor, and when the house was burned in February 1809, he went to the Royal Hibernian Theatre, Dublin. In October 1812 he returned to the rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and at about seventeen played Laertes to the Hamlet of Robert William Elliston. During the next six years he scored in such parts as Benedick, Petruchio, and Mercutio. Lord Byron, one of the governing board of the theatre in 1815-16, is said to have been his close friend. On September 7, 1818, he made his American début before an enthusiastic audience at the Park Street Theatre, New York, as Macbeth. James H. Hackett, a contemporary, describes him as of distinguished figure and bearing, with abundant dark hair, sparkling eyes, and finely cut features. His acting was of the school of Kemble. All accounts mention his rich and sonorous voice, clear articulation, quick and vigorous movement, revealing a nervous, exuberant vitality. He played in Boston and other American cities, even as far south as Savannah, in Shakespearean rôles and as Don César de Bazan, Captain Bertram in Fraternal Discord, Massaroni in The Brigand, and Don Felix in The Wonder. After a season in England (1820) he returned to America and in New York played Hamlet, Rolla, Macbeth, Richard III, and Romeo. An injury to his leg in a stage-coach accident made him slightly lame for the rest of his life. He returned to England in 1823 to become stage manager at Drury Lane under Elliston. In 1827 he played Iago there to the Othello of Edmund Kean, with whom he acted also as Edgar, Malcolm, Macduff, Faulconbridge, and Richmond. The autumn of 1828 brought him again to America. When he played at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, the competition of Edwin Forrest at the Walnut and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper at the Chestnut resulted in his being paid $200 nightly, a very high salary for the period. From 1834 to 1836 he was again in England, but his American engagements were becoming more and more important, and in 1836 he offered $1, 000 for a satisfactory play by an American writer. Nathaniel P. Willis' Tortesa the Usurer, first produced in April 1839, is believed to have been the one accepted. On September 1, 1837, he assumed the management of the National Theatre in New York, the first of four Wallack theatres, with his brother Henry as stage manager. When the house was burned on September 23, 1839, he took over Niblo's Garden for a time. After tours in America, England, and Ireland, he appeared in London in 1843 as leading actor and stage manager of the Princess Theatre, where he achieved one of his greatest successes as Don César de Bazan. In 1844 he was again at the Park, New York. He is said to have crossed the Atlantic thirty-five times. Early in 1851 he appeared at the Haymarket, London, as actor and stage manager. But his wife's death that year brought on an illness and greatly saddened him. Upon his recovery, he appeared for the last time in England at St. Pierre in J. S. Knowles's The Wife. Back in New York in 1852, he took over Brougham's Lyceum at Broadway and Broome Streets, and, with his sons John Lester as stage manager and Charles as treasurer, opened it in September with The Way to Get Married. There for nine years the second of the Wallack theatres flourished, with the manager himself playing many and varied parts--his implacable Shylock, his gentle Sir Edward Mortimer in Colman's The Iron Chest, his whimsical Jaques of As You Like It, his Martin Heywood in Jerrold's The Rent Day, his Petruchio, Mortimer, Erasmus Bookworm, Dick Dashall, and many others. To Wallack's thoroughness as stage manager Edward A. Sothern attributed much of his success. A grand benefit was given him on the afternoon and evening of May 29, 1855, at the Academy of Music, Forrest, E. L. Davenport, and others of America's foremost actors taking part. In 1861 he and Lester opened the new Wallack's Theatre at Broadway and Thirteenth Street. Wallack had ceased acting by this time, but at the close of the season in 1862 he spoke a few words, his last public appearance. His health declined rapidly thereafter until his death on Christmas Day, 1864.
From his acting company (continued by his son, Lester Wallack) developed many of the important American stage performers of the 19th century. Though the admirable versatility of Wallack's acting is considered by one critic to have been in a sense a hindrance to him, he remains the most distinguished member of a notable family whose history for over fifty years was inseparably linked with that of the New York stage.
In 1817 he married Susan Johnstone, daughter of John Johnstone, a popular singer.
