Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853–1917,) fully Sir Herbert Draper Beerbohm Tree, was an English actor and theatre manager. One of the significant figures of the English theatre was the most successful actor-manager of his time.
Born in London, Tree was the half-brother of the caricaturist Sir Max Beerbohm. Following a financial education in Germany, he became an actor and scored his first success as Spalding in The Private Secretary (1884.) He assumed management of the Haymarket Theatre (1887,) and, with the box-office success of Trilby (1894,) he built His Majesty’s Theatre (1897,) where he rivaled Henry Irving’s Shakespearean productions at the Lyceum.
Tree founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904, where one of his major successes was George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1914.) A great character actor, he excelled in roles such as Svengali, Falstaff, Hamlet, Fagin, Shylock, Malvolio, and Micawber. His stage versions of Charles Dickens’s works and his characterization of Fagin in Oliver Twist were considered outstanding.
Tree’s wife, Helen Maud Holt (1864–1937,) was an accomplished actress and directed His Majesty’s Theatre from 1902.
Max Beerbohm wrote the biography Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1920.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
People are too apt to treat God as if he were a minor royalty.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Topics: God
Cynicism is the humor of hatred.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Topics: Cynicism
Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don’t mind.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Every man is a potential genius until he does something.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Topics: Genius
He is an old bore; even the grave yawns for him.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Topics: Boredom
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