The theatre as a power: an address given by William Faversham in the Chicago university extension course of the lectures on the drama, Thursday, October 19, 1911, Chicago, Ill
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William Faversham was an English stage and film actor, manager, and producer.
Background
He was born, apparently, in St. John's Wood, London. His early history is obscure. In one account he gives his parents' names as John and Sarah (Crozier) Faversham; his death certificate lists them as William Faversham and Hannah Jones; other sources suggest that Jones rather than Faversham was his real name.
He was, by his own account, the youngest in a large family of children, though his reminiscences usually picture him as living alone with his mother, under conditions of privation.
His father, who is sometimes said to have seen army service in India and whom Faversham described as a gentleman farmer and stock breeder, died, so Faversham said, before he was born.
Education
He was educated, apparently, chiefly at St. Stephen's Church School in St. John's Wood.
Though he once claimed to have begun acting with a gypsy company at the age of fourteen, it seems more likely that his first theatrical appearance came a year or two later when, after working in an iron foundry, he became a pupil of the noted actress Carlotta LeClercq.
Career
He made his first public appearance in a special matinee with her pupils, performing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, bits from The Loan of a Lover and The Merchant of Venice, and songs from Swiss Cottage.
On tour with his fellow students, he took an emergency engagement as juvenile in the Birmingham production of The Silver King.
Miss LeClercq then recommended him to Sir Henry Irving, who invited him to join the Lyceum company as Curio in Twelfth Night. Bored with the small role, Faversham deserted the Lyceum for the juvenile lead in a makeshift stock company at Ramsgate.
In 1886 he was persuaded to support Helen Hastings, an ex-barmaid, in an American tour of Pen and Ink. The company opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York on January 17, 1887, and closed almost immediately.
The stranded actor supported himself by working as a day laborer, though he managed also to obtain brief theatrical engagements, appearing on May 3 in The Highest Bidder and on December 15 in A Sad Coquette.
For three weeks beginning March 26, 1888, he played in the Lyceum stock company of Daniel Frohman, replacing Henry Miller as Robert Grey in The Wife--the true beginning of Faversham's American career. In that same year he joined the repertory company of Minnie Maddern Fiske, touring the continent from New Jersey to British Columbia for two seasons; his most successful roles were Valentine Day in Featherbrain and Helmer in A Doll's House.
His first critical success in New York came with his appearance in Bronson Howard's Aristocracy in 1892.
In that same year Faversham joined the famous Empire Theatre stock company of Charles Frohman, where he remained for eight years, replacing Henry Miller as leading man. His principal roles were Sir Brice Skene in The Masqueraders, Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Gil de Berault in Under the Red Robe (1896), and Romeo, with Maude Adams as Juliet (1899).
Although securely established as "romantic lead, " he demonstrated in such roles a considerable variety within the type.
Leaving the Empire company as a star in 1901, Faversham appeared at the Criterion as Don Caesar in Gerald du Maurier's A Royal Rival.
In 1903 he starred in the title role of Mr. Sheridan by Gladys Unger and in 1904 as Neville Letchmere in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's Letty.
In 1908 Faversham began a series of ambitious productions under his own management, in several of which he was able to break the mold in which stardom had confined him.
On November 2, 1908, he produced, and appeared as Don Ernesto in, The World and His Wife, adapted by Charles Frederic Nirdlinger from Jose Echegaray's El Gran Galeoto.
On October 26, 1909, he produced Herod, one of the efforts of Stephen Phillips to resurrect poetic drama.
This was followed, on January 16, 1911, by Edward Knoblauch's The Faun and, in 1912, by two years of Shakespearean repertory in New York and on the road, playing Antony in Julius Caesar, Iago in Othello, and Romeo.
In September 1914 he appeared as the Comte de Dasetta in The Hawk by Francis de Croisset and made the first of a number of motion pictures.
As a startling, but well-received, experiment, Faversham assumed the role of the Bishop in George Bernard Shaw's Getting Married for its first American performance in 1916. The remainder of Faversham's career was spent under various managements.
In 1917 he appeared as James L. Fountain in The Old Country by Dion Calthrop and in 1920 as Miles Hendon in a dramatization of The Prince and the Pauper. The following season he was Major Stanley in Cosmo Hamilton's The Silver Fox and Jim Carston in a revival of The Squaw Man.
In 1923 he played Andre Briquette in A Lesson in Love by Rudolf Besier and May Edginton.
In 1924 he appeared as Paul Sylvaine in a revival of Leah Kleschna, one of Mrs. Fiske's memorable plays, and as Count Grazia in The Mask and the Face, a satirical comedy by Chester Bailey Fernald adapted from a play by Luigi Chiarelli. His engagements now become less regular.
In 1929 he played Georges in Her Friend the King by A. E. Thomas and Harrison Rhodes and undertook a tour of Australia.
In 1931 he was seen with Fritz Leiber and the Chicago Civic Shakespeare Society as Antonio in The Merchant of Venice and as Claudius in Hamlet.
In 1932, with the backing of the Warner Brothers motion picture company, he established a stock company in Montclair, New Jersey, as a testing ground for new plays and new players.
His last appearances were in 1934, as Jeeter Lester in a touring company of Tobacco Road and as the Duke of Wellington in the motion picture Becky Sharp.
Faversham was frequently called a matinee idol and "the perfect lover, " although such epithets hardly do justice to the fluency and variety of which he was capable.
As a producer he was strongly influenced by Mrs. Fiske, and his Shakespearean revivals in particular were ornate and filled with detailed realism in setting and action.
Faversham became an American citizen in 1926. In 1937, after a series of financial reverses, he entered the Percy Williams Home, East Islip, Long Island. While visiting a friend at nearby Bay Shore, he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died instantly. He was buried, as his second wife had been, in the Huntington (Long Island) Rural Cemetery.
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Views
He was thus well suited by nature for leading roles in romantic melodrama, but by careful study and training he had also fitted himself for the graceful style of speech and manner required by social comedy.
Personality
He was six feet tall and, in the period of his greatest success before the first World War, he was broad-shouldered, muscular, and vigorous.
Quotes from others about the person
Percy Hammond once described his acting as "a decoration of life. "
Connections
In 1892 Faversham married Marian Merwin, a widow. After a divorce, he married, in 1902, Julie Opp, formerly leading lady to George Alexander in London and the ex-wife of Robert Lorraine.
She died in 1921, and in 1925 he married Edith (Campbell) Walker, his leading lady, but they were separated almost at once. Two sons, William and Philip, were born of the second marriage.