Background
William Warren was born in Philadelphia, Pa. , but after his boyhood and youth in his native city, and after some ten years as a strolling player, he went in 1846 to Boston. He was the son of William and Esther (Fortune) Warren.
William Warren was born in Philadelphia, Pa. , but after his boyhood and youth in his native city, and after some ten years as a strolling player, he went in 1846 to Boston. He was the son of William and Esther (Fortune) Warren.
His education in the public and private schools of Philadelphia was brief.
He was naturally attracted to the family profession but did not make his first appearance until October 27, 1832, on the occasion of a benefit given in aid of the family at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, a few days after the elder Warren's death. He then acted Young Norval in Douglas, the part and the play in which his father had made his début in England forty-eight years before. James E. Murdoch describes him as "a youth slight in figure, and looking much like a student of divinity at home for a vacation silent and thoughtful in expression, and very formal in manner". Thereafter he was associated with and obtained his professional schooling in migratory troupes, and in resident companies at Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Buffalo, and other American theatrical centers. One of these engagements was with a company under the direction of the second Joseph Jefferson, who recalls him as "a tall handsome young man about twenty-five years of age, " with "fine expressive eyes, a graceful figure, and a head of black curly hair. " He acted in New York very seldom, first in 1841; during a visit to England in 1845, he made his only appearance on the London stage. The year 1846 marks his arrival in Boston, where he lived and worked for forty-two years. He was first associated with the Howard Athenaeum, where on October 5 he acted Sir Lucius O'Trigger in The Rivals, remaining at that theatre only during a part of one season. Joining the stock company at the Boston Museum on August 23, 1847, he acted there for the first time as Billy Lackaday in Sweethearts and Wives, and as Gregory Grizzle in My Young Wife and Old Umbrella. He soon became one of Boston's leading citizens, not merely in his capacity as an actor but as a gentleman who ranked in social standing with members of every profession and with the foremost men of business. In his Autobiography, Joseph Jefferson notes an occasion when with him as guests at Warren's table were Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields. He had begun his stage career by acting a wide range of characters in comedy, melodrama, and tragedy; but, although not lacking in versatility, he eventually made comedy his especial branch of acting, and it is upon his skill as a comedian that his reputation rests. Despite the fact that, with the exception of one season (1864 - 65) when he went on tour, he remained in one city, in one theatre, and with one stock company, he became one of the most eminent of American actors. Few visitors came to Boston without going to the Museum especially to see the famous actor, and a favorite revival season after season was a comedy, adapted from an old English play, entitled Seeing Warren. His rôles, nearly six hundred in about 14, 000 performances, extend from such Shakespearean comedy characters as Touchstone and Polonius through such eighteenth-century comedy rôles as Bob Acres, Sir Peter Teazle, and Tony Lumpkin to leading parts in ephemeral productions of new plays. The demand for his repeated impersonation of Jefferson Scattering Batkins in The Silver Spoon, by Joseph Stevens Jones, is typical of the acclaim he received in popular, though dramatically unimportant plays. If there were no part for him in a play that was put into rehearsal, one was written in so that his absence from the cast might not disappoint his admirers, the most conspicuous example of this being the interpolated character of Penetrate Partyside in Uncle Tom's Cabin. One of his associates says of his acting that it "belonged to the best French school. To celebrate his fiftieth anniversary on the stage, gala performances were given at the Boston Museum on Saturday afternoon and evening, October 27, 1882, when he played successively Dr. Pangloss in The Heir-at-Law and Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal. A few months later, on May 12, 1883, he bade farewell to the stage and to the Boston public in the character of Old Eccles in Caste. He lived thereafter in retirement, surrounded by his Boston friends and visited by many actors when they came to Boston. He died after a brief illness at the house in Bulfinch Place where he had lived many years. A vast assemblage of friends, acquaintances, and others gathered in Trinity Church to pay tribute to his life and memory, and he was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, where also lie Edwin Booth, Charlotte Cushman, and other eminent members of his profession. After his death appeared the Life and Memoirs of William Warren (1889).
(Excerpt from Life and Memoirs of William Warren, Boston's...)
Quotes from others about the person
The fine art, the fruition of study, the faithfulness in detail, all were there", and a well-known critic echoes this judgment, adding: "His acting seems the fine flower of careful culture, as well as the free outcome of large intelligence and native genius. His enunciation and pronunciation of English were beyond criticism".
He never married.