John Edward Owens was a well-known American comedian.
Background
John Owens was born on April 2, 1823, in Liverpool, but he was of Welsh parentage, the son of Griffith Owen and Mary Anderton, the surname having been changed to Owens by his father in early manhood. When the boy was five years old, the family came to America and made their home in Philadelphia, whither they had been preceded by relatives.
Education
John Owens was educated in the public schools in Philadelphia.
Career
While serving as a clerk in a drugstore John Owens made his stage début, at the age of seventeen, in a minor part at Burton's National Theatre. His progress was slow, his first important character not being given him until September 27, 1841, when at the same theatre he acted Peter Poultice in The Ocean Child. Within ten years he had acquired wide celebrity as a comedian throughout the United States and during his long career he managed companies in Baltimore, New Orleans, and other cities. He was sometimes a star, sometimes leading low comedian in stock and traveling companies. In 1856 he first played Solon Shingle in The People's Lawyer, and when he was at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1865, Dickens saw him and pronounced his portrayal of the part as one of the most vivid and natural characterizations he had ever seen on the stage.
Through the years Ownes' repertory became extensive; among his most popular impersonations were Toodles, Dr. Pangloss in The Heir at Law, Dr. Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman, Major Wellington de Boots in Everybody's Friend, Caleb Plummer, Paul Pry, Aminadab Sleek, and in fact practically all the stereotyped comedy roles of that era. In 1876 he added Perkyn Middlewick in Henry J. Byron's comedy, Our Boys, then at the height of its popularity, to his list of characters, and when in 1882 he joined the Madison Square Theatre Company in New York, he was seen as Elbert Rogers, the old farmer, in Esmeralda, with Annie Russell in the title role.
In 1885 Owens retired on account of illness to his estate of Aigburth Vale, about six miles from Baltimore, which he had bought in 1853, and increasing its size by the addition of many acres from time to time, he amused himself, during the intermissions between his engagements and tours in the entertainment of his many friends both in and out of the theatrical profession.
Owens’ wife, Mary C. Owens, wrote a biography of him, and energetically defended him from what she thought was unfair criticism of his acting by those who denied his skill as an expert comedian. When Clara Morris wrote with somewhat bad taste that even his marriage with the "little orthodox Quakeress" seemed "an expression of eccentricity, " Mrs. Owens retorted by saying in a letter to the New York Dramatic Mirror that she had evidently been inspired "by imagination rather than memory. " The consensus of opinion about Owens is that he was a comedian who relied mainly for his effects upon the resources of a genuine comic personality, that he did frequently indulge in extravagance of action in order to arouse laughter, that in his impersonations of Yankee characters he was truer to the footlights than to real life, but that his "jolly rotund and flexible features, his plump and comical looking figure, his jaunty air and personal peculiarities were almost as familiar off the stage as his lifelike and truly artistic impersonations were on it. "
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
John Owens would often say: "Every man has his hobby, and mine is harmless. Spending money on my country residence entertains me, and the improvements I make give work to people who need it. "
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
In his Autobiography, Joseph Jefferson refers to Owens as he saw him in New Orleans in 1846 as "the then rising young comedian, " and describes him as "the handsomest low comedian I had ever seen, " with a "neat dapper little figure, and a face full of lively expression, " and an "effective style and great flow of animal spirits. "
Connections
On April 19, 1849, John Owens was married to Mary C. Stevens, daughter of John G. Stevens of Baltimore.