John Vandenhoff

John Michael Vandenhoff (31 March 1790 – 4 October 1861) was an English actor. He performed in London theatres, and also in Edinburgh and Liverpool; he played leading roles including those in Shakespearean tragedy.

Life Vandenhoff was born in 1790 in Salisbury, where his family, of Dutch extraction, coming over, it is said, in the train of William of Orange, appear to have been dyers. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, with a view to the priesthood. For a year he taught classics in a school.

Early career His first appearance on the stage was at Salisbury in May 1808, as Osmond in The Castle Spectre. After playing at Exeter, Weymouth, and elsewhere, with Edmund Kean, and at Swansea with John Cooper, he made his first appearance at Bath in October 1813 as Jaffier in Venice Preserv'd. During the season 1813–1814 he played Alcanor in Mahomet, Freehold in The Country Lasses and King Henry in First Part of Henry IV. In 1814 he was a member of the company at the Lyceum Theatre, London under Samuel James Arnold. In the same year he made his first appearance in Liverpool, where he became a great favourite, playing also in Manchester, Dublin, and elsewhere.

In Edinburgh, London and America In January 1823 he appeared in Edinburgh as Coriolanus, returning in January 1826 as Macbeth, and again in February 1830, when he played Cassius in Julius Caesar, and Othello. He was a favourite in Edinburgh, where his Coriolanus inspired great enthusiasm. He appears to have played there many consecutive years between January and March.

Family In 1810 in Barnstaple he married Elizabeth Pike; they had several children, of whom Charlotte Vandenhoff and George Vandenhoff became actors.

Critics' opinions Upon Vandenhoff's first appearance in London, The New Monthly Magazine described him as "possessor of a tall figure, intelligent but not strongly marked features, and a voice sufficiently powerful but rather of a coarse quality". His Overreach was said to be pitched in too low a key, but to display judgement. The Literary Gazette "damns with faint praise" his Richard III. John Westland Marston credits him with great dignity, and with thinking out happily his characters, praising highly his Coriolanus and Creon, but speaking of his Othello and Macbeth as deficient in pathos and passion. His Iago is said to have had a mask of impulsive light-heartedness and bonhomie, and "a sort of detestable gaiety in his soliloquies and asides".