Background
John Mason was born on October 28, 1858 in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Daniel Gregory and Susan W. (Belcher) Mason, and grandson of Lowell Mason, the musician and teacher. His full name was John Hill Belcher Mason.
John Mason was born on October 28, 1858 in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Daniel Gregory and Susan W. (Belcher) Mason, and grandson of Lowell Mason, the musician and teacher. His full name was John Hill Belcher Mason.
He lived and studied for a time during his youth in Germany, and upon his return to the United States attended Columbia University (1876 - 77) but did not graduate.
His beginnings on the stage were in the acting of small parts in Philadelphia, New York, and other cities, including a tour as a singing actor with Maggie Mitchell, but his first distinctive engagement was at the Boston Museum, where he made his début as a member of its stock company in the rôle of Careless in The School for Scandal on August 25, 1879. He remained there, with a few intermissions, for more than ten years and gradually rose from general utility parts to the position of leading man, succeeding to many of the principal old comedy rôles and other characters that had been acted by Charles Barron. He appeared in many new plays, including The English Rose, Sweet Lavender, Harbor Lights, and Held by the Enemy, and in such familiar rôles as Eliot Grey in Rosedale, Captain Absolute in The Rivals, Young Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer, Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, Dazzle in London Assurance, Littleton Coke in Old Heads and Young Hearts, Zekiel Homespun in The Heir at Law, and Harry Dornton in The Road to Ruin. During the interruptions to these seasons at the Boston Museum, he played the Duc de Villafour in Steele MacKaye's Dakolar on the opening night at the Lyceum Theatre in New York in April 1885, and for a time he acted in support of Nat Goodwin. After his engagement at the Boston Museum had ended, Mason went to London and in February 1891 he played the American character of Simeon Strong in The Idler with George Alexander at the St. James's Theatre. He starred for a time in comic opera and in plays with Marion Manola, and in a later London engagement in 1895 he played Colonel Moberlv in E. S. Willard's production of Augustus Thomas' Alabama. Among the plays in which he appeared during his final years on the stage were Liberty Hall, The Attack, and Big Jim Garrity. After the first performance of The Woman in Room 13 he was stricken suddenly and died at Stamford, Connecticut.
Mason was an actor of exceptional native and acquired ability, with an assurance and a poise that were especially effective in their realization of men of distinction.
Quotes from others about the person
"John Mason was one of the best actors that America has ever produced. His power lay in his great self possession and a wonderful sense of time. His voice was deep and resonant, modulated and trained. He never showed a consciousness of his audience". - Augustus Thomas
His first wife was Marion Manola, from whom he was divorced. His second wife was Katharine Grey, who survived him.