John Gibbs Gilbert

Background

John Gibbs Gilbert was the son of John Neal Gilbert and Elizabeth Atkins. He was born on February 27, 1810, in Boston, Massachusets.

Education

As a boy, working behind the counter of his uncle’s dry-goods store, Gilbert developed a strong interest in the stage and attended the theatre regularly. Finally, he studied the part of Jaffier in Venice Preserved until he felt able to present himself to the manager of the Tremont Theatre stock company to ask for a hearing.

Career

Gilbert did so well at his trial that the manager cast him in the part. Following his début on November 28, 1828, he was offered a permanent position in the company and stayed with the theatre until the following year when the manager of the Camp Street Theatre of New Orleans offered him a better place.

He then played in New Orleans and the Mississippi River towns until 1834, when he came back to the Tremont Theatre, remaining there, with one brief exception, until the theatre closed. Part of the time, he was actor-man- ager.

While he was in Boston, he began to excel in the characterizations of elderly men with which his name later became associated. In 1847, he went abroad to study the acting of certain well-known Europeans.

He was invited to play Sir Robert Bramble at the Princess in London and was so well received that he was engaged for the following season.

He profited much by his year abroad, having the advantage of observing the work of the artists of the Théâtre Française in Paris, as well as that of Macready in London, for whom he conceived a great admiration.

On his return to the United States he played at the Park Theatre in New York, which was destroyed by fire in 1848, then went under Hamblin’s management at the Bowery Theatre in ’a company which included Wallack the younger.

In the next few years, he played at the Ploward Athenaeum in Boston, at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and at the Boston Theatre, at the opening of which, in 1854, he gave the dedicatory address and played Sir Anthony Absolute, regarded as his finest impersonation.

He remained in Boston for four years, playing a variety of parts ranging from Caliban to Bottom. He then acted in Philadelphia until Wallack the elder, who had opened his theatre at Thirteenth St. and Broadway in New York City in 1861, asked him to join the company.

He made his début with that company on September 22, 1862, and remained with it until the theatre was closed in 1888. Thereafter he played in Joseph Jefferson’s company, and at the time of his death was appearing in The Rivals with Jefferson and Mrs. John Drew.

Achievements

• Gilbert made his stage debut on November 28, 1828 at the Tremont Theatre in Boston when he played the part of Jaffier in Otway's tragedy "Venice Preserved. " He received excellent reviews for his role and was cast as Edward Mortimer in "The Iron Chest, " and he was thereafter enrolled as a reular member of the Tremong Company.

Personality

A certain hardness that marred Gilbert's earlier work disappeared with the years, though his manner off stage was always somewhat formal and lacking in real humor. William Winter regarded him as unsurpassed in certain parts, such as that of Sir Anthony.

Connections

Gilbert's first wife, Maria Deth Campbell, to whom he was married in 1836, died in 1866. In 1867, he was married to Sarah H. Gavett. He had no children.

Father:

John Neal Gilbert

Mother:

Elizabeth Atkins

Wife:

Sarah H. Gavett.

Wife:

Maria Deth Campbell

References

• A record of the Boston stage. By William W. Clapp, jr.