Henry Compton (actor)

Henry Compton (real name Charles Mackenzie) (22 March 1805 – 15 September 1877) was an English actor best known for comic roles in Shakespeare.

Biography

Compton ran away from home and a family business twice before his family accepted his desire to become an actor.

His first professional appearances were in Shakespeare plays in the British provinces. He then began to specialize in low-comedy roles in touring companies. He first appeared in London at the English Opera House (Lyceum Theatre) in 1837, as Robin in "The Waterman". After several further roles there, he joined the company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, again playing in Shakespeare. Roles that followed included Tony Lumpkin, Gnatbrain in "Black-Eyed Susan", Silky in Thomas Holcroft's "The Road to Ruin", Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Mawworm in Isaac Bickerstaff's "The Hypocrite", Marrall in Philip Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts", and Dr Ollapod in George Colman's "The Poor Gentleman".

By the early 1840s, Compton had earned the reputation of being the best Shakespearian clown of his age. He continued in seasons at in Dublin, Ireland, at Drury Lane (playing Polonius, Sir Peter Teazle, Launcelot Gobbo, and Foresight in Congreve's "Love for Love"), in Manchester and elsewhere. At the Princess's Theatre, London, where he performed for three years, he famously played Touchstone in 1844. He was then at the Olympic Theatre for three years, where also he remained three years. After the Olympic burned down, he moved to the Royal Strand Theatre. In 1853 he joined the company of John Baldwin Buckstone at the Haymarket Theatre, where he originated the role of Blenkinsop in "An Unequal Match" by Tom Taylor, Sir Solomon Frazer in Taylor's "The Overland Route", De Vaudray in "A Hero of Romance" by Westland Marston, and Captain Mountraffe in "Home" by T. W. Robertson.

In 1848, Compton married actress Emmeline Catherine Montague (d. 1911). In 1870, he was back at the Olympic in Taylor's "Handsome is that Handsome Does", and in 1871 was in "Partners for Life" by H. J. Byron the old Globe Theatre. Compton's last role was in 1877 at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in Liverpool as Mawworm in "The Hypocrite" and Pangloss in Colman's "The Heir-at-Law".

Compton died after a long struggle with cancer at the age of 72 in Kensington, London.

References

*Knight, Joseph; rev. Gayle T. Harris. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6033 "Compton, Henry (1805–1877)",] "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 11 Oct 2008