Kemble, JOHN PHILIP

Kemble, JOHN PHILIP, eldest son of Roger Kemble, a well-known country manager, was born at Prescot, in Lancashire, on 1st February 1757. His father intended him for the Roman Catholic priesthood, and with this view he was sent to a seminary at Sedgeley Park, in Staffordshire, and afterwards to the English college at Douay. But the stage mania was on him, and he became, despite his father's earnest prohibition, an actor. His first professional appearance was made at Wolverhampton on 8th January 1776; he afterwards joined the famous York circuit, under the command of Tate Wilkinson; and he played also in Ireland. The success of his great sister, Mrs Siddons (q.v.), gave him the eagerly-coveted chance of a London appearance, and on 30th September 1783 he played Hamlet at Drury Lane. His reading of the character was original and striking, and, though his acting was not then what it afterwards became, it aroused the keenest interest. He continued to play leading tragic characters at Drury Lane for many years, until, indeed, the shiftlessness of Sheridan forced him to leave the theatre. In 1788 Sheridan appointed Kemble manager, and his control of the theatre was notable for the care and completeness with which Shakespeare and the legitimate drama were produced. When driven from Drury Lane in 1802 he purchased a share (one-sixth) in Covent Garden Theatre, for which he paid £23,000. He became manager of that theatre, and made his first appearance there on 24th September 1803 as Hamlet. On 20th September 1808 the theatre was burned to the ground, and on the opening of the new building (18th September 1809) the notorious O. P. (i.e. 'Old Price') Riots broke out, in which the Kemble family were the special objects of public execration. Kemble retired in 1817. He took a formal farewell of the Edinburgh public on 29th March of that year, speaking a farewell epilogue written by his warm friend, Sir Walter Scott. His London farewell was taken on 23d June in his great character of Coriolanus. He afterwards settled down at Lausanne, where he died of apoplexy on 26th February 1823. As an actor Kemble probably has had no superior in the dignified, stately characters of tragedy—he was 'the noblest Roman of them all'—and his Coriolanus, his Brutus, and his Cato were perfect impersonations. He was a magnificently handsome man; stately, if rather stiff, in bearing; a thoroughly intelligent and educated speaker, though labouring under the disadvantage of a weak voice; and, above all, a man of remarkable intellectual power. He was also emphatically a gentleman.—STEPHEN, brother of the foregoing, was born in Herefordshire, 3d May 1758. As an actor he was chiefly remarkable for his enormous bulk, which enabled him to play Falstaff without stuffing. He was for some eight years (1792-1800) manager of the Edinburgh theatre, where he was in continual hot water through lawsuits and other troubles. He died in 1822.—CHARLES, younger brother of John and Stephen, was born at Brecon on 27th November 1775. In 1792 he made his first appearance on the stage at Sheffield as Orlando in As You Like It, and on 21st April 1794 made his début in London, playing Malcolm to John Kemble's Macbeth. He continued on the stage till 1840, when, being appointed Examiner of Plays, he retired from the active exercise of his profession. He died on 12th November 1854. As an actor Kemble chiefly excelled in characters of the second rank, and his Laertes, Cassio, and Macduff were scarcely less interesting than his greater brother's Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. In comedy he specially distinguished himself, and his name is even yet a tradition for grace, delicacy, and joyous brightness. No man could play gentlemen more perfectly than Charles Kemble.—Two of Charles's daughters complete the list of the Kembles. FRANCES ANNE (Fanny Kemble), born in London, 27th November 1809, made her début in 1829, when her tragic acting created a great sensation. In 1832 she went with her father to America, where two years later she married Pierce Butler, a Southern planter. They were divorced in 1848; and, resuming her maiden name, she gave Shakespearian readings for twenty years. She published dramas, poems, autobiography, &c., and died in London, 15th January 1893.—ADELAIDE (1814-79) was distinguished as an opera singer, but retired before her marriage with F. Sartoris. She was author of A Week in a French Country House (1867) and Medusa and Other Tales (1868). See Percy Fitzgerald, The Kembles (2 vols. 1871).