Paul Meredith Potter

Background

He was born on June 3, 1853 in Brighton, England, the son of a teacher who was at one time head master of King Edward's School at Bath and editor of the Bibliotheca Classica.

Education

There is no information about his education.

Career

As early as 1876 Potter was foreign editor of the New York Herald, filling that position until 1883, when he became the London correspondent and later the dramatic critic of the same paper. In 1888 he was a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune, and while thus engaged began his career as a dramatist.

His first successful effort at the making of plays was the writing of a hodge-podge entertainment entitled The City Directory, produced by the Russell Comedians in May 1889, but his first real play was a drama, The Ugly Duckling, acted by Mrs. Leslie Carter in 1890 during her first days on the stage.

He soon advanced to the position of a dramatist whose work was constantly sought for, being especially ingenious in the adapting of plots, scenes, and characters to the capabilities of stars. Play followed play from his pen in rapid succession, many of them being acted under the auspices of Charles Frohman then at the outset of his career.

In 1898 The Conquerors was acted by Charles Frohman's Empire Theatre Company, and not long afterward there arose a furious controversy over the claim that in it Potter had utilized incidents and scenes from Sardou's La Haine and Guy de Maupassant's Mademoiselle Fifi. In 1901, Under Two Flags, Potter's stage version of Ouida's novel, offered Blanche Bates the opportunity to make a name for herself as a star in the character of Cigarette, and in 1909, upon his return from Switzerland, where he had been living for some time, his dramatization of Arsène Lupin gave further evidence of his skill and brought to the stage a popular hero of mystery stories.

Other plays of his at this time were Nancy Stair, based on the novel of the same name by Elinor Macartney Lane, and The Honor of the Family, from a French source, for Otis Skinner. Later he wrote a musical play, The Queen of the Moulin Rouge. He died in 1921.

Achievements

• Paul Meredith Potter was a famous foreign correspondent for the New York Herald and afterwards joined the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune. He was a facile and competent workman at the making over of popular novels for the stage, his most notable achievement was the direction of the dramatization of "Trilby".

Connections

There is no information about his marital status.

influencer:

Charles Frohman