Oscar Asche

John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche (24 January 1871 – 23 March 1936) was an Australian actor, director, and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals. After being a digger, a mounted police officer and a storekeeper, Thomas Asche became a prosperous hotel-keeper and publican in Melbourne and Sydney. He began training with an architect who soon died. He next worked as a jackaroo and then in an office, but he wished to be an actor, and soon began to study acting in Norway.

At Bergen, Asche was instructed in deportment, voice production and theatre arts. He began to study acting in Christiania,

Early stage career In 1893 Asche played the role of Roberts in Man and Woman at the Opera Comique in London, and for the next eight years, he was engaged by the F. R. Benson Company. |group= n He said that he owed his place in Benson's company as much to his cricketing as to his acting abilities: the Benson company fielded a cricket team wherever it toured in the summer months. He travelled to America to repeat the role on Broadway in 1902.

Actor-manager years

In 1904 Asche became co-manager with Otho Stuart of the Adelphi Theatre on a three-year lease. Their productions included The Prayer of the Sword, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, Count Hannibal (which he wrote with F. Norreys Connell) and Rudolf Besier's The Virgin Goddess. In 1906 he played King Mark in J. Comyns Carr's play Tristram and Iseult at the Adelphi Theatre, with Lily Brayton as Iseult and Matheson Lang as Tristram.

He produced the play Kismet in London in 1911, also playing the leading role, Hajj. The production ran for two years, and a successful tour in Australia followed in 1911–12, with Kismet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Antony and Cleopatra. the production ran for 2,238 performances, from 31 August 1916 to 22 July 1921. The run easily broke the existing record of 1,466 performances, set by Charley's Aunt in the 1890s. The new record stood for decades. The show drew some criticism for the ladies' scanty costumes, which Tree described as "more navel than millinery", but it was just what war-weary audiences wanted. Chu Chin Chow also played in New York City in 1917 and Australia in 1920. Also during the run of Chu Chin Chow, Asche directed the hit London production of The Maid of the Mountains for Robert Evett and the George Edwardes Estate, which had an outstanding run of 1,352 performances.

After the success of Chu Chin Chow, Asche wrote another musical that opened on Broadway in 1920 under the name Mecca and then in London the following year under the name Cairo. In 1922, Asche visited Australia again, under contract to J. C. Williamson Ltd., and played Hornblower in John Galsworthy's The Skin Game, Maldonado in Pinero's Iris, his usual roles in Chu Chin Chow and Cairo, the title character in Julius Caesar, and in other Shakespeare plays. |group= n

Further successes eluded Asche as he tried to mount musicals, including The Good Old Days of England (1928), financed by his wife. was a failure. In 1933 Asche made his last stage appearance in The Beggar’s Bowl at the Duke of York's Theatre. Asche also made appearances in seven films between 1932 and 1936, including in Two Hearts in Waltz Time (1934), as the Spirit of Christmas Present in the 1935 film Scrooge, and in The Private Secretary (1935). He also wrote several books, including his autobiography, but these ventures did not solve his financial troubles.

In his final years, Asche became obese, poor, argumentative and violent. He and his wife separated, but, at the end, he returned to her and died at the age of 65 in Bisham, Berkshire, of coronary thrombosis. He was buried in the riverside cemetery there. He had no children.

Writings

Novels and autobiography Oscar Asche: His Life (1929) Saga of Hans Hansen (1930) The Joss Sticks of Chung (1931)

Plays Mameena (1914) Cairo (1921) Chu Chin Chow (1931) The Good Old Days The Spanish Main (under the pen name Varco Marenes) Cairo (libretto)