Henry Hallam

Henry Hallam (August 7, 1850 – November 11, 1921) was a British-born operatic tenor and early film actor who began his five decade career singing on stage in England and then Australia and on tour in Australasia and India. He later appeared in silent films in the United States.

Early career He was born as Henry Samuel Hallam Mayer in Clerkenwell in London in 1850, one of four children born to Elizabeth née Williams and Martin Mayer, a furrier of 8 Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane. He studied singing with Joseph Robinson in Liverpool before commencing a professional career as a teenage burlesque performer.

Australasia

In 1872 Hallam joined the Simonsen opera company for whom he sang Fritz in The Grande-Duchesse of Gérolstein and Manuel in The Rose of Castille. He appeared in 'Operatic Concerts' in Sydney before joining the music hall performer Harry Rickards with whom he toured Australia and New Zealand, singing ballads between Rickards' comic turns. In 1873 Hallam left Rickards and tried his hand at stockbroking but on losing all his money he returned to what he knew best - singing and performing, to which he added teaching. He appeared with the Alice May Opera Company and in November 1873 married the Launceston-born actress Mary Harriet Langmaid (1846–1874), who was a popular performer on stage in Sydney as 'Hattie Shepparde'. audiences laughed the show off the stage and the production was savaged by the critics. Stahl and Crawford fled back to America and Hallam went with them. Fritz in The Grand-Duchesse of Gérolstein, Goncalves in The Brazilian, Ange Pitou in La fille de Madame Angot among other productions before touring in Erminie and Giroflé-Girofla. His attempt at management of the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco failed and he returned to New York to play Risotto in The Mountebanks (1893) before marrying for the third time in 1893 - to the Dutch-Canadian soprano Josephine Davidson Schoff (1877-), who sang as Josephine Stanton. The problem was he was still married to Maggie Hogan, who did not divorce him until July 1895. The newlyweds toured with Alfa Norman and played in a summer season at Milwaukee before playing in La fille de Madame Angot. Hallam sang in The Isle of Gold which failed before touring in A Stranger in New York. On joining the Boston Lyric Company he played Pietro, Prince of Palma in Boccaccio, Pippo in La mascotte and sang opposite his wife in Fra Diavolo, The Fencing Master and in Scott Marble and Richard Stahl's Said Pascha.

In 1912 Hallam began a new career as a character actor in silent films, going on to make over 130 films. The Drummer Girl of Vicksburg (1912) The Wartime Siren (1913) The Brand (1914) The Siren's Reign (1915) The Coquette (1915) The Vanderhoff Affair (1915) Blue-Eyed Mary (1918) Bonnie Annie Laurie (1918) How Could You, Caroline? (1918) Just for Tonight (1918) Putting One Over (1919) Phil for Short (1919), as College President Help! Help! Police! (1919) My Little Sister (1919) The Lion and the Mouse (1919) Cousin Kate (1921) Tol'able David (1921), as The Doctor The Conquest of Canaan (1921), as Colonel Filmcroft