Background
Robert Edeson was born on June 3, 1868, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He was the son of George R. Edeson, actor and stage manager, and his wife Marion (Taliaferro) Edeson.
Robert Edeson was born on June 3, 1868, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He was the son of George R. Edeson, actor and stage manager, and his wife Marion (Taliaferro) Edeson.
When he was still a child the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he was educated in the public schools.
At sixteen he went to work in the office of the Park Theatre, then under the direction of Col. William E. Sinn. In the following year, 1887, he made his first appearance on the stage as the result of a wager with Colonel Sinn, taking the part of an absent member of Cora Tanner's company which was playing Fascination at the house. He continued to play small parts during the remainder of the season and then left to tour with A Night Off. For two years he was in The Dark Secret and then played in other comedies.
In 1892-93 he was leading man at the Boston Museum. One night when the company was giving a very lethargic performance of Our Boys, and Edeson was trying to put some life into his fellow players, Charles Frohman happened to be in the front of the house. He liked the work of the young actor and engaged him for the Empire Theatre Company of New York. With that company Edeson played in The Masqueraders, Liberty Hall, Sowing the Wind, Under the Red Robe, and other dramas.
In 1897, when Maude Adams was starred in J. M. Barrie's The Little Minister, Edeson made a distinct hit as her leading man and played the Rev. Gavin Dishart with her for two seasons. In November 1899 he played David Brandon in The Children of the Ghetto in New York, and in the following month he made his first appearance on the London stage in the same part. He was leading man with Amelia Bingham in The Climbers and for a short time played King Charles in Mistress Nell.
In March 1902 he was starred in Richard Harding Davis's Soldiers of Fortune and was very well received. He won his greatest acclaim as Soangataha in Strong-heart, an Indian drama by William C. de Mille, which he played from 1905 to 1907, taking it to London on tour. As a star he also appeared in The Rector's Garden, Ranson's Folly, Classmates, The Call of the North, The Noble Spaniard, and two plays by himself, Where the Trail Divides and His Brother's Keeper.
His last appearance on the stage was in 1922 as the Vagrant in The World We Live In ("The Insect Play").
In his last years he gave some of his time to coaching young film actors in speech, but he continued to appear in films until shortly before his death. On March 24, 1931, Edeson died at his home in Hollywood. He was 62 years old.
Edeson was one of the early stage stars to go into motion pictures. He was in one of the first long films to be made, The Girl I Left Behind Me, in which he had once appeared on the stage. He played the leading part in the screening of Strongheart and also The Call of the N. Other motion pictures in which he appeared were The King of Kings, A Romance of the Rio Grande, and Cameo Kirby. He was in other films but these were his best.
He was a stalwart, well-built person, of good carriage, quiet and likeable.
He was married four times. His first wife was Ellen Burg, an actress who appeared with him in his earlier plays. She died in 1906 and in 1908 he married Georgie Eliot Porter, daughter of Linn Boyd Porter, who as Albert Ross wrote the Albatross novels. They had a daughter, Roberta. They were divorced in 1917 and later in the same year Edeson married Mary Newcomb, an actress, from whom he was divorced in 1924. His last wife was Aida de Martinez, a young South American girl whom he met in Hollywood.
