Jefferson, JOSEPH

Jefferson, JOSEPH, comedian, was born in Philadelphia on 20th February 1829. He came of a theatrical stock, his great-grandfather having been a member of Garrick's company at Drury Lane, while his father and grandfather were well-known American actors. With such an ancestry it is not wonderful that young Jefferson was on the stage from his very infancy, appearing as Cora's child in Pizarro when only three years of age, and dancing as a miniature 'Jim Crow' when only four. For many years he went through the hard training of a strolling actor, and then played in New York, where in 1857 he made a hit as Doctor Pangloss, and in 1858 created the part of Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin, Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. In 1865 he visited London, and at the Adelphi Theatre played for the first time his world-famous part of Rip Van Winkle (4th September 1865). With this character his name is identified, and, although he has shown himself an admirable comedian in many characters, to the English-speaking world he is always Rip Van Winkle. Nor is this wonderful, for the character is one of the most perfect works of art—beautiful in conception, subtle and delicate in execution. And the art is all the actor's; the dramatist has done nothing. Rip is a lazy, good-for-nothing vagabond, but Jefferson makes him 'the Arcadian vagabond of the world of dreams.' See his Autobiography (New York, 1890).