John Edward McCullough was born of peasant parentage in a little village not far from Coleraine, Londonderry, near the northeast coast of Ireland. His father, James McCullough, was a poor farmer, and his mother, Mary, left at her death in 1844 a family including also three daughters and her husband. John McCullough emigrated to the United States in the spring of 1847 some weeks after one of his sisters had made the trip. He went to Philadelphia, where resided a cousin, with whom he obtained employment as a chair maker. His father, with his two other sisters, followed soon afterward.
Education
At the age of fifteen he could neither read nor write, but he soon overcame that handicap, and within a few years by reading and study, by practical experience as an amateur with a Philadelphia dramatic club, and by taking lessons with a teacher, he found himself well equipped in body and mind for the profession he followed almost uninterruptedly for twenty-seven years.
Career
He made his first professional appearance on August 15, 1857, as Thomas in The Belle's Stratagem at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia. His advance was slow but always forward and was the undeniable result of close study and hard work. He remained in Philadelphia until the summer of 1860, and was then engaged by Edward L. Davenport for the company at the Howard Athenium in Boston, acting there through the season of 1860-61. Again in Philadelphia, he reached the turning point in his career when he was chosen by Edwin Forrest to act second parts with him. He first acted with Forrest while on tour with him in Boston in October 1861, as Pythias to the star's Damon in John Banim's famous play. He was soon, as Forrest's leading man, playing Laertes, Macduff, Iago, Edgar, Richmond, Icilius, and Titus, also seconding him in those dramas that were Forrest's personal property, Metamora, The Gladiator, Jack Cade, and The Broker of Bogota. After traveling with Forrest for several seasons, McCullough spent two years at McGuire's Theatre in San Francisco then entered a partnership with Lawrence Barrett at the California Theatre which continued until November 1870. He remained in San Francisco as sole manager of the theatre until a heavy financial loss in 1875 compelled his permanent abandonment of theatre management. In 1873 he had begun a series of tours over the country, and for season after season he was everywhere received with a continuous favor that did not abate until his compulsory retirement on account of illness. Frequent engagements in New York added to his reputation not merely as Forrest's successor in robust characters, but also through his own merits. In 1881 he played a brief engagement in London.
The last days of McCullough were pathetic. After vainly seeking renewed health in Germany, he returned to the stage for a brief period, his final mental and physical breakdown occurring at McVicker's Theatre in Chicago, September 29, 1884, during a performance of The Gladiator. The audience, not realizing the cause of his failure to go on with his part, broke out into laughter, and when he was helped before the curtain by two members of his company, he said: "Ladies and gentlemen, you are the worst mannered audience I ever saw. If you had suffered tonight as I have, you would never have done this. Good night. " He never acted again. After a while he was placed by friends in a sanitarium, remaining there from June 27 to October 25, 1885, being removed thence to his home in Philadelphia, where he died two weeks later.
Achievements
John Mccullough has been listed as a notable actor by Marquis Who's Who.
Personality
McCullough made his way in the world and on the stage through his own individual efforts, aided by an innate talent for his profession. The word noble was frequently, and justly, applied to his characterizations. He found in the tragedies of Shakespeare, in the classic plays of our language such as Virginius, Richelieu, and Damon and Pythias, and also in the melodramas first made famous by Forrest, a fitting and expressive means for the denotement of a dramatic skill that was always effective even though it fell short of inspiration and genius. Like Forrest, he was imposing in stature, forceful in voice and action, and although he lacked the finer powers that gave spiritual significance to the interpretations of other actors, he was in many ways the real embodiment of a long line of theatrical figures.
Quotes from others about the person
"He played many parts, but the parts in which he was best in which his nature was liberated and his triumph supreme were distinctly those which rest upon the basis of the genial human heart and proceed in the realm of the affections. He displayed artistic resources, intellectual intention, and sometimes a subtle professional skill in such characters as Hamlet and Richelieu; but he never was in sympathy with them, and he did not make them his own. He was an heroic actor. " - William Winter
Connections
McCullough was married on April 8, 1849, to Letitia McClain (or McClane) who survived him. They had two sons, James and William F. Johnson McCullough.
