Friday, November 10, 2017
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Charles Dillion (7) A Critic's Reflection
I thought an decent retrospective analysis of Dillion from a Melbourne Critic of 1914 might be if interest. The following is from a regular column entitled "Dramatic Memories" by “Proteus” published in Freeman’s Journal, Sydney, of date 20 August 1914 (p.12). It is long but worth the attention, as much for its content, but also for what is between the lines.
"If these memories were to follow exact chronological order—which they do not pretend to—Montgomery would have not been mentioned imediately after Sullivan. In the same year that witnessed Sullivan’s arrival (1862), a ‘wandering star’ of no little importance was visible in Australia. That was Charles Dillon. He came quite unannounced. Not even the tiniest newspaper paragraph had heralded his approach. As a matter of fact , he had crossed over the pacific rom San Francisco under the impulse, it would seem, of a sudden whim, for Charles Dillon was an actor who at that time was in little danger of soon wearing out his welcome in any English-speaking community where the stage was an institution. He was really a very fine performer. But along with groat talent he had a streak, and no very light one, of Bohemianism. He would often act on the spur of the moment, and in direct opposition to his own interests.
George Coppin, who had recently opened the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke-street, Melbourne, at once entered, into an engagement with Dillon, and put him up for Macbeth. There was earnestness and power in his representation of the ambitious Thane. He was especially effective in the dagger scene, and also where Macbeth is confronted with the apparition of the murdered Banquo. Dillon, in these two scenes, showed a certain imaginative perception which had its influence on his audience. It is a quality in the absence of which tragedy, however engrossing, and words, to whatever extent they may be weighted with great thoughts— become mere “sound and fury signifying, nothing.” Yet, on the whole, the Macbeth of Charles Dillon did not very much impress the first Australian audience that was privileged to witness it. It is no reflection on Dillon’s memory to say that the Melbourneites had seen at least one tragedian who rose more imposingly to what has been called “the wild and supernatural glory” of the wonderful Scottish tragedy. They had seen Brooke. Dillon did not reveal his real strength till he was seen in romantic drama or an that distinctive variety labelled as “domestic.” His Belphegor in the play of that name was a very natural and a very pathetic piece of acting. The late Mr. Alfred Dampier, long subsequent to Dillon's time, in Australia, made a good deal out of the same character. Before Dillon came, it had been played by Clarence Holt (father of Bland), who was wont to remind his friends that he was the only Belphegor on the stage. The statement was usually emphasised with a highly coloured adjective which need not be quoted here. But Clarence Holt was very far from being equal to Dillon in Belphegor. The piece was an adaptation from the French, the leading character in which was originally sustained by the celebrated Frederic Lemaitre. It was considered one of Lemaitre's best parts. His best was not deemed a bit better than that of the English actor who took up the same character.
Dillon was for several years only known in England as a provincial actor. He was within a couple of years of forty when his first chance offered in London. That was in 1856. He appeared as Belphegor at Sadler's Wells Theatre, a house which, though far outside the bounds of fashionable London, had, under the spirited and intelligent management of Samuel Phelps, and through his own efforts as an exponent of the legitimate drama, won a high place in the estimation of critical audiences. After his success at Sadler’s Wells, however, Dillon soon shifted to the quarter where theatrical audiences of the better sort most did congregate. He opened at the Lyceum, and repeated his success as Belphegor. He assumed the management of the house, of which he remained for several months the main attraction, and with the part of the mount-bank as his surest card. He played it so long that the public began to wonder whether he was only a man of one part.
That notion was speedily banished when he produced a version of Dumas' 'Three Musketeers,' in which he represented D'Artagnan. He was generally admitted to have caught the very spirit which must have actuated the fiery young Gascon drawn by the novelist. Next to Belphegor, it remained his favourite part. The verdict of so excellent a judge of acting as Charles Dickens was not, wanting in his favour. Dickens went to see him one night in a piece specially written for him by Dr. Westland Marston, entitled ''The Hard Struggle.” The author asked the great novelist what he thought of the man who played the hero. His acting, Dickens answered, was what acting should be — ''Nature itself.” Dickens, who was himself an admirable actor, was not in the habit of indiscriminately lavishing his encomiums on new candidates for celebrity in that line. No man had a more profound contempt for false histrionic art. What he said as to Dillon's merits is tolerably conclusive on the subject.
Dillon did not confine himself too long to romantic and domestic drama. He bid boldly for distinction in “Legitimate.” He appeared as Othello, and had an encouraging reception. He followed it up with Macbeth, which he played to the Lady Macbeth of the celebrated Helen Faucit (Lady Martin). His next Shakespearian venture, was Hamlet. The writer saw him in all three characters when he visited Australia, but must confess not to have been much carried away by his performance in any of them. There were indeed scenes in his Hamlet, even as in his Macbeth, in which he was very striking. The closet scene in 'Hamlet' was rendered peculiarly effective by his “business” as it is technically termed, in connection with the apparition of the Ghost. It became visible as though it had glided through the picture of Hamlet's father, hanging on the wall. Hamlet followed it as it traversed the round of the chamber, and his exclamation to his mother, 'There, out at the portal!' as the ghost vanished, was really awesome in its tones. But fragmentary excellence in great Shakespearian parts is not enough. And Dillon was never more than fragmentary in such assumptions.
After finishing his season with Coppin in Melbourne, he came up to Sydney, and opened at the Victoria Theatre on April 6, 1863. He didn't try the Sydneyites with Shakespeare on this occasion. He contented himself with the version of the French play which Dion Boucicault had written tor Charles Kean, and in which Kean, as the central figure, Louis XL, had added so greatly to his reputation. The very next year a Sydney audience had an opportunity of judging for itself as to Kean's merits. He was no doubt a more haunting figure as the Valois King, than Dillon, but for all that Dillon’s impersonation was decidedly good. Those who had never seen Charles Kean in the same part were disposed to rate Dillon's Louis very high indeed. He gave his Sydney admirers Shakespeare too. On the evening when he took his benefit at the “Old Vic” as the close of a season of some four months he showed his versatility by playing Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” and Willam in Douglas Jerrold’s “Black-Eyed Susan.”
Dillon wandered over Australia and New Zealand for three or four years—at least over such regions of both as could be considered theatrical ground. On quitting these shores he went to England by way of America. An interesting conjuncture of two actors of undoubted ability was when Dillon and Barry Sullivan played together at the Melbourne Royal, of which Sullivan was then the lessee. When “Othello” was produced, the Moor was represented by Dillon, Iago by Sullivan. It was thought by most of those who saw them thus contrasted with one another, that Sullivan's Iago was a far finer performance than Dillon's Othello. In setting down this the writer does not forget that Mr. Titheradge not long since declared that he thought Charles Dillon the best tragedian of his day. Mr. Titheradge spoke, with no ordinary authority on such a subject. Be that as it may, personal impressions, such as they were, must be recorded faithfully here.
Dillon, on his return to England, successfully toured the provinces for many years, and was occasionally to be seen in London . He was engaged to support the title part in a production of “Manfred" at Drury Lane, and was said to have given a very artistic impersonation of Byron's mysterious and much soliloquising hero.
As a Shakespearian actor Dillon as already intimated, could not be classed with Sullivan, much less with Brooke. In his human weaknesses, however, if by no means in his artistic strength, he had certain affinities with the gifted Dubliner. A certain careless temperament was common to both. They both failed to take advantage of fine opportunities. After Brooke's great success at the London Olympic, he was offered an engagement by Benjamin Webster at the Haymarket, and on terms which were then considered very liberal. He was, of course, to lead in tragedy. To take up such a position in the house where Macready had made his farewell appearance was, so to speak, to have his claim to stand at the head of the profession formally recognised. Macready himself, in an entry in his diary, grudgingly acknowledged Brooke's right to it— for Macready was not generous in his recognition of any of his contemporaries. Brooke meanwhile had, for some unaccountable reason, refused Webster's offer and betaken himself to the provinces. He was not seen in London again till he returned from America in 1852, but his welcome was as warm as ever when he appeared on the boards of “Old Drury.” Ten years later Drury was to see him, again, but under altered circumstances. He was badly supported, and the man himself was in partial eclipse.
Dillon forsook London as capriciously as Brooke had forsaken it. In neither case could it be said that audiences had forsaken the actors. It is only by taking into account the irresistible promptings of the Bohemian temperament and the constant desire for change that the thing can be explained at all. In his later days Dillon used to revert regretfully to the time when he had “the ball at his feet.” No doubt he had, so far as he was capable of kicking it. With a melancholy sense of declining power, shortly before his death, he is said to have made a sad forecast of what might yet await him. Pointing to an old actor with whom he had often played, and who was getting a wretched living as a ticket-taker, poor Dillon shook his head and muttered, “Perhaps I'll come to that…” He died early in the Eighties. Brooke and Dillon were born in the same year, 1818."
"If these memories were to follow exact chronological order—which they do not pretend to—Montgomery would have not been mentioned imediately after Sullivan. In the same year that witnessed Sullivan’s arrival (1862), a ‘wandering star’ of no little importance was visible in Australia. That was Charles Dillon. He came quite unannounced. Not even the tiniest newspaper paragraph had heralded his approach. As a matter of fact , he had crossed over the pacific rom San Francisco under the impulse, it would seem, of a sudden whim, for Charles Dillon was an actor who at that time was in little danger of soon wearing out his welcome in any English-speaking community where the stage was an institution. He was really a very fine performer. But along with groat talent he had a streak, and no very light one, of Bohemianism. He would often act on the spur of the moment, and in direct opposition to his own interests.
George Coppin, who had recently opened the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke-street, Melbourne, at once entered, into an engagement with Dillon, and put him up for Macbeth. There was earnestness and power in his representation of the ambitious Thane. He was especially effective in the dagger scene, and also where Macbeth is confronted with the apparition of the murdered Banquo. Dillon, in these two scenes, showed a certain imaginative perception which had its influence on his audience. It is a quality in the absence of which tragedy, however engrossing, and words, to whatever extent they may be weighted with great thoughts— become mere “sound and fury signifying, nothing.” Yet, on the whole, the Macbeth of Charles Dillon did not very much impress the first Australian audience that was privileged to witness it. It is no reflection on Dillon’s memory to say that the Melbourneites had seen at least one tragedian who rose more imposingly to what has been called “the wild and supernatural glory” of the wonderful Scottish tragedy. They had seen Brooke. Dillon did not reveal his real strength till he was seen in romantic drama or an that distinctive variety labelled as “domestic.” His Belphegor in the play of that name was a very natural and a very pathetic piece of acting. The late Mr. Alfred Dampier, long subsequent to Dillon's time, in Australia, made a good deal out of the same character. Before Dillon came, it had been played by Clarence Holt (father of Bland), who was wont to remind his friends that he was the only Belphegor on the stage. The statement was usually emphasised with a highly coloured adjective which need not be quoted here. But Clarence Holt was very far from being equal to Dillon in Belphegor. The piece was an adaptation from the French, the leading character in which was originally sustained by the celebrated Frederic Lemaitre. It was considered one of Lemaitre's best parts. His best was not deemed a bit better than that of the English actor who took up the same character.
Dillon was for several years only known in England as a provincial actor. He was within a couple of years of forty when his first chance offered in London. That was in 1856. He appeared as Belphegor at Sadler's Wells Theatre, a house which, though far outside the bounds of fashionable London, had, under the spirited and intelligent management of Samuel Phelps, and through his own efforts as an exponent of the legitimate drama, won a high place in the estimation of critical audiences. After his success at Sadler’s Wells, however, Dillon soon shifted to the quarter where theatrical audiences of the better sort most did congregate. He opened at the Lyceum, and repeated his success as Belphegor. He assumed the management of the house, of which he remained for several months the main attraction, and with the part of the mount-bank as his surest card. He played it so long that the public began to wonder whether he was only a man of one part.
That notion was speedily banished when he produced a version of Dumas' 'Three Musketeers,' in which he represented D'Artagnan. He was generally admitted to have caught the very spirit which must have actuated the fiery young Gascon drawn by the novelist. Next to Belphegor, it remained his favourite part. The verdict of so excellent a judge of acting as Charles Dickens was not, wanting in his favour. Dickens went to see him one night in a piece specially written for him by Dr. Westland Marston, entitled ''The Hard Struggle.” The author asked the great novelist what he thought of the man who played the hero. His acting, Dickens answered, was what acting should be — ''Nature itself.” Dickens, who was himself an admirable actor, was not in the habit of indiscriminately lavishing his encomiums on new candidates for celebrity in that line. No man had a more profound contempt for false histrionic art. What he said as to Dillon's merits is tolerably conclusive on the subject.
Dillon did not confine himself too long to romantic and domestic drama. He bid boldly for distinction in “Legitimate.” He appeared as Othello, and had an encouraging reception. He followed it up with Macbeth, which he played to the Lady Macbeth of the celebrated Helen Faucit (Lady Martin). His next Shakespearian venture, was Hamlet. The writer saw him in all three characters when he visited Australia, but must confess not to have been much carried away by his performance in any of them. There were indeed scenes in his Hamlet, even as in his Macbeth, in which he was very striking. The closet scene in 'Hamlet' was rendered peculiarly effective by his “business” as it is technically termed, in connection with the apparition of the Ghost. It became visible as though it had glided through the picture of Hamlet's father, hanging on the wall. Hamlet followed it as it traversed the round of the chamber, and his exclamation to his mother, 'There, out at the portal!' as the ghost vanished, was really awesome in its tones. But fragmentary excellence in great Shakespearian parts is not enough. And Dillon was never more than fragmentary in such assumptions.
After finishing his season with Coppin in Melbourne, he came up to Sydney, and opened at the Victoria Theatre on April 6, 1863. He didn't try the Sydneyites with Shakespeare on this occasion. He contented himself with the version of the French play which Dion Boucicault had written tor Charles Kean, and in which Kean, as the central figure, Louis XL, had added so greatly to his reputation. The very next year a Sydney audience had an opportunity of judging for itself as to Kean's merits. He was no doubt a more haunting figure as the Valois King, than Dillon, but for all that Dillon’s impersonation was decidedly good. Those who had never seen Charles Kean in the same part were disposed to rate Dillon's Louis very high indeed. He gave his Sydney admirers Shakespeare too. On the evening when he took his benefit at the “Old Vic” as the close of a season of some four months he showed his versatility by playing Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” and Willam in Douglas Jerrold’s “Black-Eyed Susan.”
Dillon wandered over Australia and New Zealand for three or four years—at least over such regions of both as could be considered theatrical ground. On quitting these shores he went to England by way of America. An interesting conjuncture of two actors of undoubted ability was when Dillon and Barry Sullivan played together at the Melbourne Royal, of which Sullivan was then the lessee. When “Othello” was produced, the Moor was represented by Dillon, Iago by Sullivan. It was thought by most of those who saw them thus contrasted with one another, that Sullivan's Iago was a far finer performance than Dillon's Othello. In setting down this the writer does not forget that Mr. Titheradge not long since declared that he thought Charles Dillon the best tragedian of his day. Mr. Titheradge spoke, with no ordinary authority on such a subject. Be that as it may, personal impressions, such as they were, must be recorded faithfully here.
Dillon, on his return to England, successfully toured the provinces for many years, and was occasionally to be seen in London . He was engaged to support the title part in a production of “Manfred" at Drury Lane, and was said to have given a very artistic impersonation of Byron's mysterious and much soliloquising hero.
As a Shakespearian actor Dillon as already intimated, could not be classed with Sullivan, much less with Brooke. In his human weaknesses, however, if by no means in his artistic strength, he had certain affinities with the gifted Dubliner. A certain careless temperament was common to both. They both failed to take advantage of fine opportunities. After Brooke's great success at the London Olympic, he was offered an engagement by Benjamin Webster at the Haymarket, and on terms which were then considered very liberal. He was, of course, to lead in tragedy. To take up such a position in the house where Macready had made his farewell appearance was, so to speak, to have his claim to stand at the head of the profession formally recognised. Macready himself, in an entry in his diary, grudgingly acknowledged Brooke's right to it— for Macready was not generous in his recognition of any of his contemporaries. Brooke meanwhile had, for some unaccountable reason, refused Webster's offer and betaken himself to the provinces. He was not seen in London again till he returned from America in 1852, but his welcome was as warm as ever when he appeared on the boards of “Old Drury.” Ten years later Drury was to see him, again, but under altered circumstances. He was badly supported, and the man himself was in partial eclipse.
Dillon forsook London as capriciously as Brooke had forsaken it. In neither case could it be said that audiences had forsaken the actors. It is only by taking into account the irresistible promptings of the Bohemian temperament and the constant desire for change that the thing can be explained at all. In his later days Dillon used to revert regretfully to the time when he had “the ball at his feet.” No doubt he had, so far as he was capable of kicking it. With a melancholy sense of declining power, shortly before his death, he is said to have made a sad forecast of what might yet await him. Pointing to an old actor with whom he had often played, and who was getting a wretched living as a ticket-taker, poor Dillon shook his head and muttered, “Perhaps I'll come to that…” He died early in the Eighties. Brooke and Dillon were born in the same year, 1818."
Charles Dillon (6) Portrait
A portrait of Charles Dillion from his American visit. The photo was formerly in the archive of "picturehistory.org" whose lamentable business practice and unholy price structure (and limits on the persons with whom they would deal) made their business unprofitable. The archive is now in the possession of a University: Yale, I think, who are a long way off digitising the thousands of images — if ever. God bless Yale for its acquisition, but meantime, here is a saved image (I have somewhat clumsily removed the picturehistory watermark).
If Yale wish this taken down, please drop me a line.
Various other sources:
(1) Victoria and Albert Museum have an agrarian of Dillon as "Belephegor' also, in engraved form, as Hamlet and in Othello (all available in good resolution with an excellent pop-up window with reasonable limits and conditions).
(2) The State Library of Victoria, Melbourne have a CDV in their H88 accession series.
(3) The Baillieu Library in Melbourne has a hand copied engraving in an oval cartouche (a copy of what looks to be an American engraving). (3a) An American engraving, upon which the Baillieu one is based, whose source I cannot find but which is included below.
(4) Harvard has him also in the ubiquitous engravings as Hamlet and Othello.
(5) Yale (see above)
(6) A painting of him as 'Belphegor' painted by Raeburn was mentioned in the book "Conquest: the story of a Theatrical family" but I have never seen the painting.
All in all, not a bad haul.
Charles Dillion (4) the Wives
Dillon was 'married' four times; two documented, and two unverified in status.
The first wife remains unknown. Charles could have passed some of his youth in Ireland, for the Americans alter noted his Irish accent; an accent that is not picked up simply in the home, but in the community. Perhaps Alfred Dillo had taken him there was a child, and in his formative years, acquired that accent, and perhaps a young sweetheart to whom he may have formed an attachment. Other accounts talk of his early days in the North (after a childhood in London), where perhaps he married prior to coming back South. There is a marriage in Scotland of a Mr. Charles Dillon to a Frances Quin, of the 7th of October 1838, in Lanarkshire, though it not possible at the moment to know if this was he. Another possibility, is that of a marriage between a Charles Dillon and Mary Clegg in Manchester of 15th December 1845. I mention these as curiosities, and do not list the numerous Charles Churches that married during the period.
To his second wife is given the larger portion of interest: "Clara." I believe her to have been born as "Rose Kate Roxby"on the 22nd of November 1829, to parents Henry Roxby and wife Clara Beverley, which is odd. We know from the records of the Conquest theatrical family that Ben Conquest (né Oliver) the actor, took as his second wife, Clarissa Bennett, one of several daughters of Joshua Bennett, a Wandsworth coal-merchant who must have earned pretty coin because three of his daughters enrolled as dancing students very early on. One of her classmates, Louisa Coghlan White married the horse-faced actor, Henry Roxby, also known as Mr. Henry Beverley — a name he took after his home town. Louisa and Henry married in 1817, but nine years later i 1826, Henry Roxby married Clarissa Ann Bennett.
It was their daughter —known as Clara Bennett Roxby, that was to marry Charles Dillon on the 27th of January 1854 in Shoreditch; and, in Brighton, on the 4th of March 1863, her mother Clarissa married Benjamin Conquest, after having obtaining a divorce from Henry Roxby on ground of desertion. I assume Louisa, earlier, had suffered a similar fate, if she had not died in childbirth.
The family still recalled that Clarissa the elder had given birth to the first of her and Ben's children, when Clara had given birth to Charles Dillon's first child.
Of the third we know a little, especially that she was not a wife at all, but a mistress, fellow player, and in her foreign tours with Charles, called herself Mrs. Dillon, although she was just plain old Eliza Webb. Well, not quite 'plain old' as she was the daughter of Charles Webb, actor and 'theatrical writer' who had translated — so he claimed — the French "Paillasse" into "Belphegor" for Charles Dillon, which I suspect he didn't; it is far more likely that he re-wrote the tale from the English translation already extant for Ben Webster's version of it, some years earlier. Charles and his brother, Henry Berry Webb were celebrated comedians. Eliza was christened (and named for her mother) in Watling Street London on the 20th of April 1845. She died however on the 13th of December of 1865 in New York, of Typhoid — just twenty years old. Her uncle Henry Berry Webb died two years later, most lamented by the profession. With her brother in Madras, poor Charles Webb, who died in 1889 had been most ably looked after by Alice Grieve who he had married in 1876, presumably after Eliza Señor had died.
No doubt, Charles Dillon's affairs ended his relationship with Clara. She never remarried as far as we know but her daughter Clara married an actor named Henry George.
Which brings us to spouse, or spouse equivalent number four, "Bella Mortimer" born as Isabella Hamilton Mentrup in about 1838 at Sculcoates, Yorkshire. Her father Richard, a master-mariner had died early and her mother Eleanor struggled on with two daughters. Bella married Charles in Cardiff in 1874 but did not live any long measure after that, as she died in 1881.
Clara Dillon died at Durham House, Portsmouth on the 3rd of July 1889.
The Australian actor that passed himself off as William Charles Dillion, and then as Charles W. Dillon was indeed a son, but by a woman named 'Silver' about whom I have found nothing. This Dillon Junior is better known for his splendidly scandalous divorce case with the actress Edith Pender.
Dillon was known for pathos and the articulation of emotional agonies — little wonder; his life was full of grievings, partings and ill-conceived investments in many areas.
The first wife remains unknown. Charles could have passed some of his youth in Ireland, for the Americans alter noted his Irish accent; an accent that is not picked up simply in the home, but in the community. Perhaps Alfred Dillo had taken him there was a child, and in his formative years, acquired that accent, and perhaps a young sweetheart to whom he may have formed an attachment. Other accounts talk of his early days in the North (after a childhood in London), where perhaps he married prior to coming back South. There is a marriage in Scotland of a Mr. Charles Dillon to a Frances Quin, of the 7th of October 1838, in Lanarkshire, though it not possible at the moment to know if this was he. Another possibility, is that of a marriage between a Charles Dillon and Mary Clegg in Manchester of 15th December 1845. I mention these as curiosities, and do not list the numerous Charles Churches that married during the period.
To his second wife is given the larger portion of interest: "Clara." I believe her to have been born as "Rose Kate Roxby"on the 22nd of November 1829, to parents Henry Roxby and wife Clara Beverley, which is odd. We know from the records of the Conquest theatrical family that Ben Conquest (né Oliver) the actor, took as his second wife, Clarissa Bennett, one of several daughters of Joshua Bennett, a Wandsworth coal-merchant who must have earned pretty coin because three of his daughters enrolled as dancing students very early on. One of her classmates, Louisa Coghlan White married the horse-faced actor, Henry Roxby, also known as Mr. Henry Beverley — a name he took after his home town. Louisa and Henry married in 1817, but nine years later i 1826, Henry Roxby married Clarissa Ann Bennett.
It was their daughter —known as Clara Bennett Roxby, that was to marry Charles Dillon on the 27th of January 1854 in Shoreditch; and, in Brighton, on the 4th of March 1863, her mother Clarissa married Benjamin Conquest, after having obtaining a divorce from Henry Roxby on ground of desertion. I assume Louisa, earlier, had suffered a similar fate, if she had not died in childbirth.
The family still recalled that Clarissa the elder had given birth to the first of her and Ben's children, when Clara had given birth to Charles Dillon's first child.
Of the third we know a little, especially that she was not a wife at all, but a mistress, fellow player, and in her foreign tours with Charles, called herself Mrs. Dillon, although she was just plain old Eliza Webb. Well, not quite 'plain old' as she was the daughter of Charles Webb, actor and 'theatrical writer' who had translated — so he claimed — the French "Paillasse" into "Belphegor" for Charles Dillon, which I suspect he didn't; it is far more likely that he re-wrote the tale from the English translation already extant for Ben Webster's version of it, some years earlier. Charles and his brother, Henry Berry Webb were celebrated comedians. Eliza was christened (and named for her mother) in Watling Street London on the 20th of April 1845. She died however on the 13th of December of 1865 in New York, of Typhoid — just twenty years old. Her uncle Henry Berry Webb died two years later, most lamented by the profession. With her brother in Madras, poor Charles Webb, who died in 1889 had been most ably looked after by Alice Grieve who he had married in 1876, presumably after Eliza Señor had died.
No doubt, Charles Dillon's affairs ended his relationship with Clara. She never remarried as far as we know but her daughter Clara married an actor named Henry George.
Which brings us to spouse, or spouse equivalent number four, "Bella Mortimer" born as Isabella Hamilton Mentrup in about 1838 at Sculcoates, Yorkshire. Her father Richard, a master-mariner had died early and her mother Eleanor struggled on with two daughters. Bella married Charles in Cardiff in 1874 but did not live any long measure after that, as she died in 1881.
Clara Dillon died at Durham House, Portsmouth on the 3rd of July 1889.
Dillon was known for pathos and the articulation of emotional agonies — little wonder; his life was full of grievings, partings and ill-conceived investments in many areas.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Charles Dillon (3)
Stars, especially early ones, are apt to leave stories of their origins that, to charitably put it, are untrue. Charles Dillon was a slight exception, in that it was always implied that he was illegitimate, but the account was rouged and powdered: pathos even in memory.
In the ERA I found some accounts by a commercial clerk, who, after Dillon's death took to writing fond reminiscences of Dillon, and the theatre. The ERA correspondent's name was Algernon Sydney Roalfe Cooper, and in one letter he declares himself to have been Dillon's cousin and offers even a short story of his boyhood days, lamenting Dillon's never-written memoirs.
Algernon S.R.Cooper was indeed Charles Dillon's cousin, on his mother's side; Algernon was born in 1822 to John Cooper and Melicent [sic] Roalfe, whose sister, Eliza Mary Roalfe had married actor Arthur Dillon in 1822. Both girls were London born daughters of — I believe — Clement Roalfe (1758-1802) of Little Earl Street, Seven Dials, London (a victualler — Lord, the numbers of stage folk whose social uterus was a Hotel or Public House is beyond counting!) and Elizabeth Harris (they married at Bethal Green) in 1780.
Eliza Mary Roalfe was born in Piccadilly, Middlesex and became pregnant by a comedian, John James Church between 1818-1819 with young Charles John being the result. Charles John "Church" despite being born in Diss (which straddles the border between Norfolk and Suffolk) in 1819, is not listed not on the IGI, nor would I expect him to be if his parents were never married. There was a Charles James Church christened on the 8th of August, 1819 in Newport, Shropshire with the right parental names, and it must be said that with strolling players, their children's birthing couch and christening font are sometimes not within respectable distance. Some research into the theatre in these places at that time will have to be done.
John James Church was a drunkard, and I cannot find his age (but he started his London stage career in 1813 under Elliston), but he abandoned Eliza for greener fields because J.J.Church married in Norwich in 1821 to Emma Louisa Forster, and he was said to have been the son of Dr. Church of City Road, London. Why was he in Norwich?
Well, less that a year later Eliza Roalfe married Arthur Yates Dillon, an actor, whom Algernon recalled was a 'bit of a tyrant.' Arthur stated in a census that he was born in the East Indies, and perhaps he was; there was a definite Arthur Dillon christened in Madras of 1802, which would make him 20 when marrying Miss Roalfe who was 34 — not an impossible age gap and in theatrical circles, a common one: perhaps she had charms. Perhaps it is not him, but of interest is that Arthur Dillon was not an unknown name in the early 19th century and the name was from an Irish family caught up in the Revolution and their Arthur Dillon ended up under the guillotine, and I suspect young Arthur Yates Dillion was from that family, though possibly of consanguinous distance (one of the Irish Dillons was Governor of Tobago)
John James Church died, impoverished, during 1864 in Chelsea, having been very ill since 1859 a year in which he had collapsed with hunger and exposure, and was taken to a hospital and aided by several actors. The last of his days were spent in painting and glazing, and even that ended.
Arthur Dillon established his acting agency in 1840 where he first started using the middle name Yates; was it is to use, or was this just the advantage of associated glory? He died on November 24th 1856 having struggled greatly.
Roalfe is such a rare name, and of Kentish origin, and I believe that was where Charles Dillon's maternal line hailed from.
Of the wives of Charles Dillon, and of the offspring, I will say more later.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Charles Dillon (2)
Charles Church, called Dillon, or perhaps Charles John Church was an unsophisticated actor; not classically trained, nor the pupil of a great actor turned elocutionist, but simply a man who gained, by long experience as a strolling player, the basics of acting and pleasing a crowd.
Of his acting not much is written but what is written stands out, and is repeated over and over again: his Belphegor. The play from which the character draws its fame, in its English version was called "Belphegor: the Mountbank" or "Belphegor, or the Pride of Birth" or "Belphegor; Wife's Inconstancy" and the iteration goes on. It was a piece called "Paillasse" by D'Ennery who adapted it for the stage for Frédéric Lemaître. Such was its success that it crossed the channel in translation.
Its plot is simple; a strolling player, a Mountebank arrives — with his wife — at a nobleman's house during a fair, and the wife is informed by the Nobleman's trusted counsellor, that she is the daughter of that nobleman and is thus advised to abandon her husband through a legal dissolution, and to take up her station. Both Belphegor and his wife laugh at the suggestion and leave, only to have the nobleman's counsellor pursue, and convince the wife to return with him, using the leverage of her sick daughter to achieve his aim.
Belphegor is then hounded from town to village, in company of his faithful son. Belphegor eventually returns — disguised — to the home of the nobleman to find that the companion that has been the nobleman's counsel was an escaped convict and confidence trickster, who is then exposed by Belphegor.
Finally it is revealed that it is really Belphegor, the Mountebank himself, who is the long lost child of the desperate nobleman.
Dillon is always spoken of as having portrayed that role with such anguish and emotion, that it moved all who saw the performance. What is interesting is that the well from which the emotion was draw may well have been Dillon's childhood itself. Born is Diss, Norfolk, his mother was betrayed by a strolling player and then abandoned. This strolling player we think, was one Arthur Church, and Charles' mother was then taken in by another kinder actor, who according to Charles himself was named Dillon and whose kindness he relayed by carrying his name. One has to wonder about the resonant power of Dillon's own domestic tragedy, and how he turned that chaos into a force that was focussed through various 'abandonment and wandering' roles.
He was also known for his King Lear, which is no surprise, given the familiar nature of the anguish that Dillon obviously carried with him throughout his life.
Of his acting not much is written but what is written stands out, and is repeated over and over again: his Belphegor. The play from which the character draws its fame, in its English version was called "Belphegor: the Mountbank" or "Belphegor, or the Pride of Birth" or "Belphegor; Wife's Inconstancy" and the iteration goes on. It was a piece called "Paillasse" by D'Ennery who adapted it for the stage for Frédéric Lemaître. Such was its success that it crossed the channel in translation.
Its plot is simple; a strolling player, a Mountebank arrives — with his wife — at a nobleman's house during a fair, and the wife is informed by the Nobleman's trusted counsellor, that she is the daughter of that nobleman and is thus advised to abandon her husband through a legal dissolution, and to take up her station. Both Belphegor and his wife laugh at the suggestion and leave, only to have the nobleman's counsellor pursue, and convince the wife to return with him, using the leverage of her sick daughter to achieve his aim.
Belphegor is then hounded from town to village, in company of his faithful son. Belphegor eventually returns — disguised — to the home of the nobleman to find that the companion that has been the nobleman's counsel was an escaped convict and confidence trickster, who is then exposed by Belphegor.
Finally it is revealed that it is really Belphegor, the Mountebank himself, who is the long lost child of the desperate nobleman.
Dillon is always spoken of as having portrayed that role with such anguish and emotion, that it moved all who saw the performance. What is interesting is that the well from which the emotion was draw may well have been Dillon's childhood itself. Born is Diss, Norfolk, his mother was betrayed by a strolling player and then abandoned. This strolling player we think, was one Arthur Church, and Charles' mother was then taken in by another kinder actor, who according to Charles himself was named Dillon and whose kindness he relayed by carrying his name. One has to wonder about the resonant power of Dillon's own domestic tragedy, and how he turned that chaos into a force that was focussed through various 'abandonment and wandering' roles.
He was also known for his King Lear, which is no surprise, given the familiar nature of the anguish that Dillon obviously carried with him throughout his life.
(Ben Webster at the 1851 Adelphi version)
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Charles Dillon, the English Lemaître
Normally I wax prosaic about a subject, but my thoughts upon the poor player hereunder described in an Australian obituary, will come later, when his portrait is delivered.
"Connected with the epoch of which I speak there rises before me the image of an actor who has sometimes been called the English Lemaitre. This was the unfortunate Charles Dillon, who certainly possessd the gift of genius, although, as in the case of his great French prototype, it was accompanied by infirmities which clouded its brightness and shortened his life.
He was a singularly ugly man. with no forehead worth speaking of, and in order to remedy nature's oversight in this respect, he was accustomed to shave off a portion of his front hair; his nose was nondescript, his eyes glittered with a light that could be either mirthful or baleful, according to the mood of the moment, and a heavy black moustache concealed a vast mouth, that bristled with what might be called fangs rather than teeth. Yet when you saw him in Belphegor, -or in King Lear, upon the stage, or you listened to his conversation, overturning with humorous anecdote, outside of the theatre, you forgot all about his ordinary features.
His was born at Diss, in Suffolk, in the year 1819, and commenced his career in Richardson's Theatre, which used to travel from fair to fair in England, and present to a succession of critical audiences a thrilling drama, a dance, and a pantomime in the short space of 20 miuutes. Charles Dillon's mother had been betrayed, deserted, and left starve by a strolling player named Church; and the boy adopted the name of a strolling actor who had befriended him. On quitting Richardson's booth, he connected himself with a sucession of provincial companies, and had his full share of the hardships and privations which were — at that time — inseparable from such a career.
During an engagement at Stafford he played Iago to Brooke's Othello, and the Desdemona of the tragedy was a pretty brunette named Clara Conquest, who had not long before consented to become Mrs. Dillon. Having acquired an established reputation in Edinburgh, Dublin, Liverpool, and Manchester, he procured an engagement in London, where he made his first appearance at Sadler's Wells Theatre, on the 21st of April, 1850. The character he chose was that in which, a few years later, he presented himself to a Melbourne audience at the Theatre Royal, namely, that of Belphegor, in a translation of "Paillasse." Next morning The Times declared that his acting would " become a topic of conversation amongst all whose discourse turned upon the merits of plays and players." Charles Dillon's reputation was made.
Less than six months afterwards he became the lessee of the Lyceum, where his company included Miss Marie Wilton (Mrs. Bancroft), J. L. Toole, Miss Woolgar, and Mr. William Brough; and the highest critical authorities in London, The Times, The Daily News, the Saturday Review, the Spectator, and the Atheneum, concurred in praising his Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, Louis the Eleventh, D’Artagnan, and Claude Melnotte. With his careless and thriftless habits and complete ignorance of finance it was inevitable that Dillon should get into difficulties, and when his creditors became importunate and he was impressed with the fear of being arrested, he fled to the United States. On the voyage he had the misfortune to break his leg in two places daring a violent storm, and he landed in New York penniless and a cripple.
He procured an engagement at Wallack's Theatre, and limped out to the stage as Belphegor to confront a thin and chilly audience. But he vindicated his powers as an actor, and gained a fair amount of fame, but very little money. Thence he stretched across the country to California and Nevada, and, having scraped together the means of paying his passage to Australia, came out here, where he made a great hit in his favourite character ot the starving mountebank. I remember few things more exquisite in their kind than his simple, natural expression of silent anguish and hopeless sorrow in the great scene where the famishing man, sublime in his friendless misery, and utterly broken down with grief and hunger, heroically strove to shake himself together, and to struggle through his exhibition of professional buffoonery in the public street. His little bit of business with the shawl, after he had made the discovery that the wife he adored had abandoned him, was almost agonising in its silent pathos.
I think his Lear came next in point of high quality. His elocution betrayed at times a want of culture and refinement, but the more passionate scenes of the tragedy atoned for all deficiencies. In the delivery of that magnificent imprecation beginning, " Hear, Nature, hear," the actor displayed an immensity of feeling, an impetuosity of manner, a dreadful energy of purpose, and a pathos of expression which sent a thrill through the spectators, and the storm of passion which spent itself in a rain of tears brought the water into many eyes. When, stunned by the incredible ingratitude of both his daughters, he turned, in blank amazement, to the heavens for comfort in his desolation, Dillon was equally impressive, pathetic, and effective. He tell off somewhat, in the third act; but throughout the mad scene, and in the midst of those "bursts of reason's half-extinguished I glare," he displayed that quality ot sensibility which was one of the distinguishing features of his acting. There were tears in in his voice as he uttered the words, "Pray do not mock me," and the last scene in the last act was altogether admirable; while the touching iteration of the word “never." In that wonderful dying speech of Lears, uttered " in doubt more touching than despair," was so mournfully cadenced as to give it its full, sorrow-fraught meaning. The performance, taken as a whole, was so grand as to astonish and perplex you; because its uncommon merit was so inconsistent with the common character of the actor's mind and ordinary manner.
On the stage he was a man of genius, off it he was very apt to become a mere bibulous Bohemian ; and I doubt whether the plandits of a crowded theatre gave him so much pleasure as he felt when leaning over the back bar ot the Argus Hotel and narrating anecdotes of his professional career, and of the many famous actors and actrtsses he had known, to a circle of listeners which comprised some of the brightest men at that time connected with the press, the stage, and the legal Profession. He was, like most actors, an excellent mimic, and could reproduce Charles Kean, Fechter, Phelps, and other players to the life so as to give the utmost dramatic effect to the stories he would tell of each.
He left Australia towards the end of 1867 reappearing at Sadler’s Wells as Lear in February, 1868; playing afterwards at Drury Lane, from whence his besetting weakness banished him in 1878. Then he dropped out of London life altogether, and fell back upon the management ot a strolling company. At Hawick, in Berwickshire, in June, 1881, poor Dillon played his last part, Othello, to a pitifully small audience, treated his company to some ale at a tavern adjoining the theatre, amused them by relating some of his Australian experiences, sallied out into High Street in a cheerful mood, raised his hand to his head, exclaiming, “God! can this be death?” and fell dead upon the pavement.” —The Australasian, Oct 2 1886
[Pictures to come…]
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