Sothern

Sothern, EDWARD ASKEW, comedian, was born in Liverpool, 1st April 1826, and, declining the church, medicine, or the bar, in 1849 joined a company of players in Jersey, and soon afterwards passed into the stock company of the Theatre Royal, Birmingham. From 1852 he appeared in the United States, without much success, until in 1858 Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor, was brought out in New York, with Sothern cast for the small part (forty-seven lines) of Lord Dundreary. The piece was a poor thing, and the character of the English peer as playgoers know it was Sothern's own creation, bit by bit. In November 1861 the play was produced in London, at the Haymarket, and ran for over 400 nights; and it was again and again revived in later years. Sothern essayed many other characters, but he is remembered chiefly as Dundreary; his other most memorable parts were David Garrick in Robertson's comedy, and perhaps Fitztamont in The Crushed Tragedian; the latter failed utterly in England, but was always popular in America, whither Sothern returned several times. He died in London, 21st January 1881. See the Memoir by T. E. Pemberton (1890).