R. G. Knowles

Richard George Knowles (October 7, 1858 – January 1, 1919) was a Canadian-American singer and comedian, who was successful in the British music halls and internationally in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, billed as "The Very Peculiar American".

Biography

Knowles was born in Hamilton, Canada West, a British subject, but was raised in Chicago. He left school at the age of 12, after his father died, and worked for a while as a window dresser in a department store, before moving to Colorado for his health. There, he discovered a talent for storytelling, and decided to launch a career in entertainment.

He made his first professional appearance in vaudeville in Chicago in 1878, and appeared in New York the following year. He toured in the United States for some years, and developed his act which Peter Gammond describes as being "most of it a sustained sarcastic attack on his audience". He toured in a musical comedy, Mam’zelle, worked for some time with Haverly's Minstrels, and in 1888-89 worked as an actor in Augustin Daly's theatrical company in New York.

He made his first appearances in London at the Trocadero Music Hall in June 1891. Although he was not an immediate success, he soon gained popularity with his "husky voice, staccato delivery, and American-style humour." Billed as "The Very Peculiar American", he always appeared in a costume of "a seedy frock coat, battered top hat, and white trousers." He had long residencies at the Empire, Leicester Square, and the Tivoli Theatre of Varieties, breaking box office records for a single performer. One reviewer wrote:He doesn’t give the audience time to catch up with him. It has no sooner seen the point of one joke and begun to laugh boisterously than another is hurled at it, with the result that when the curtain comes down, the comedian leaves both himself and his auditors breathless.

In 1918 he published an autobiography, A Modern Columbus: his Voyages, his Travels, his Discoveries. He retired from the stage in October 1918, with a farewell performance at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London.

After returning to the United States, he died on New Year's Day, 1919, aged 60, following a throat operation at the Memorial Hospital in New York.