Roy Redgrave

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George Ellsworthy "Roy" Redgrave (born April 26, 1873 in Kennington, Borough of Lambeth , South London , † May 25, 1922 in Sydney , Australia ) was an English stage and silent film actor. Redgrave is considered to be the founder of the Redgrave family of actors .

life and career

Roy Redgrave's great-grandfather, Thomas Redgrave, was a wealthy shoemaker in Northampton , where the leather industry flourished. He and his wife Mary had twelve children. His parents were George Augustus Redgrave and the actress Zoe Beatrice Elsworth Pym. Roy was the oldest of five children. As a teenager, he and his sister Dolly performed in local amateur theaters. The death of his father at the age of only 30 in 1881 forced eight-year-old Roy to work as a barber's assistant to support the four younger siblings. When his mother married a second time, Redgrave began to be more determined in his acting career. His brother Christopher also had a love for this profession and became a stage manager at the Surrey Theater.

Roy was athletically built and had considerable charm. Not only did he become an expert in every type of theatrical stunts, staging fights that seemed dangerous, but he also mastered the craft of seduction, a talent he also possessed in real life. He was seen as a character actor at the Westend Theater in the 1890s, as well as at the Britannia Theater in Hoxton , from which his reputation as "The Dramatic Cock of the North" resulted. He has been hailed as London's most popular actor.

In 1894 Redgrave married Ellen Maud Pratt, who also became an actress and changed her name to Judith Kyrle. She received a generous dowry from her wealthy father. The couple had three children between 1895 and 1898. Redgrave did not dive into husband and domesticity, however, and remained a philanderer who was always spotted in female company.

In 1903 Redgrave met actress Esther Mary Cooke, who was a member of a successful circus troupe. After she said goodbye to the trapeze to also become an actress, she changed her name to Ettie Carlisle. In a play she played alongside Redgrave. They became lovers. Judith Kyrle threatened her husband and his lover with disrupting their careers. Carlisle turned away from him because he did not keep his promise to dissolve his marriage and to marry her and that same year he married the actor William Arthur Parrett, stage name Cecil Clayton, in Cape Town . Redgrave was able to get her to come back to England with him, however.

Back in his homeland, Redgrave successfully played the notorious Captain Starlight in a stage version of Rolf Boldrewood's classic Australian novel Robbery Under Arms and was soon offered a role from Standard Theater Shoreditch in The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turn , a drama with one moral message. He then played the role of Jack Livingstone in The Stage . One of the few classic roles in his career was that of Mercutio in Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet . He played several times with the beautiful and respected actress Minnie Tittell Brune, who was one of the most important actresses on the Australian stage. Brune was happily married, but Redgrave's charm failed her.

Redgrave's marriage to Judith Kyrle ended in divorce in 1905, though rumors continued to circulate that such a divorce never happened. However, there is said to be a document in the National Archives of the United Kingdom to prove otherwise.

From the 1907 marriage with the actress Margaret "Daisy" Scudamore , the son Michael Redgrave (born March 20, 1908, † March 21, 1985) emerged, who also became an actor. Redgrave received an offer in 1908 from William Anderson, who had just opened a theater in Melbourne . In December Redgrave went to Australia , in the summer of 1909 Scudamore followed him with their son Michael. Since things went pretty bad for the couple there, Scudamore returned to England with Michael in 1911. They never saw each other again. When Redgrave died in Sydney in May 1922 , he was buried anonymously there. After his granddaughter, Lynn, found his grave site in 1980, the grave was given a headstone that read Roy Redgrave, actor .

Filmography

  • 1911: The Christian
  • 1913: Transported
  • 1913: The Sick Stockrider
  • 1913: The Road to Ruin
  • 1913: The Reprieve
  • 1913: The Remittance Man
  • 1913: Moondyne
  • 1913: The Crisis
  • 1917: Our Friends the Hayseeds
  • 1920: Robbery Under Arms

literature

  • Donald Spoto: The Redgravs . A Family Epos Biography – Entertainment and Performing Arts, publisher: Crown Archetype. 2012, ISBN 978-0-307-72014-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roy Redgrave at Omnilexica.com. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g The Redgraves: A Family Epos by Donald Spoto at powells.com. (English). Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  3. ^ Dramatic Gun Cook at tvtropes.org. (English). Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  4. ^ A b Roy Redgrave at redgrave.com. (English). Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  5. ↑ Redgraves Find an Ancestor In: The Sydney Morning Herald of March 7, 1979 (English). Retrieved May 19, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Redgrave, Roy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Redgrave, George Ellsworthy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English stage and silent film actor
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Kennington, South London
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1922
Place of death Sydney , Australia