Background
Richard Mansfield was born in Berlin, Germany, on May 24, 1854. His parents were Hermine Rudersdorff, a dramatic soprano and teacher, and Maurice Mansfield, an English wine dealer.
Richard Mansfield was born in Berlin, Germany, on May 24, 1854. His parents were Hermine Rudersdorff, a dramatic soprano and teacher, and Maurice Mansfield, an English wine dealer.
Mansfield was educated at Derby School, in Derby, England, where he studied painting in London, but his success on the English stage as a monologist and in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas determined his career.
Arriving in New York in 1882, he secured small parts in A. M. Palmer's theater company; his first important role, as Baron Chevrial in Octave Feuillet's A Parisian Romance (1883), made him a star overnight. In his early career Mansfield's outstanding successes were scored in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Booth Tarkington's Monsieur Beaucaire. He toured England in 1888 and was acclaimed in London as he had been in New York. As producer, Mansfield had several notable successes: Richard III (1889), Arms and the Man (1894), and The Devil's Disciple (1897).
Mansfield was married in 1892 to Beatrice Cameron, an actress. After their wedding, she was often referred to as Mrs Richard Mansfield by the press. In 1898 the couple had their only child, Richard Gibbs Mansfield.