Richard Mansfield

Richard Mansfield (24 May 1857 – 30 August 1907) was a German-born English actor-manager best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; his performances in the last made such an impression that he was accused of being Jack the Ripper.

Life and career Mansfield was born in Berlin and spent his early childhood on Heligoland, Germany, an island in the North Sea, then under British rule. His parents were Hermine Küchenmeister-Rudersdorf, a Russian-born operatic soprano, and Maurice Mansfield, a British London-based wine merchant (died 1861). His grandfather was the violinist Joseph Rudersdorff. Mansfield was educated at Derby School, in Derby, England, and studied painting in London. His mother took him to America, where she was performing, but he returned to England at age 20. Finding that he could not make a living as a painter, he gained some success as a drawing-room entertainer, eventually moving into acting.

Early career, D'Oyly Carte and first London successes

He first appeared on the stage at St. George's Hall, London, in the German Reed Entertainments and then turned to light opera, joining Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy Opera Company in 1879 to appear as Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore on tour. He continued to play the Gilbert and Sullivan comic "patter" roles on tour in Britain until 1881. Mansfield created the role of Major General Stanley in the single copyright performance of The Pirates of Penzance in Paignton, England, in 1879. In addition to Sir Joseph and the Major General, in 1880 he also began to play John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer. It was with this play that he made his London reputation during the 1888 season at the Lyceum Theatre, by invitation of Henry Irving. He also reprised the role in Broadway revivals. He was one of the earliest to produce George Bernard Shaw's plays in America, appearing in 1894 as Bluntschli in Arms and the Man, and as Dick Dudgeon in The Devil's Disciple in 1897. The latter production was the first Shaw production to turn a profit. As a manager and producer of plays, Mansfield was known for his lavish staging. He often produced, starred in (often opposite his wife), and directed plays on Broadway, sometimes also writing under the pseudonym Meridan Phelps. His other Broadway roles in the 1890s included Napoleon Bonaparte (1894), the title role in The Story of Rodion, the Student (1895), Sir John Sombras in Castle Sombras (1896), Eugen Courvoisier in The First Violin (1898 and 1988), the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1898 and 1899).

He began the new century on Broadway in the title role in King Henry V (1900), followed by the title character in Monsieur Beaucaire, Brutus in Julius Caesar (1902), Karl Heinrich in Old Heidelberg (1903 and 1904), and roles in Ivan the Terrible (1904), A Parisian Romance (1904 and 1905), The Merchant of Venice (1905), Richard III (1905), Alceste in The Misanthrope (1905), The Scarlet Letter (1906) and Don Carlos (1906), among others. He continued to perform until his final year. One of his last performances, just a few months before his death, was the title role in a Broadway production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, the play's U.S. premiere.

Family life Mansfield was married in 1892 to Beatrice Cameron (1868–1940), an actress. After their wedding, she was often referred to as Mrs Richard Mansfield by the press. In 1898 the couple had their only child, Richard Gibbs Mansfield (1898–1918). The younger Mansfield was an ambulance driver in France early during World War I, eagerly enlisting while underage (with his mother's consent). When America entered the war, he joined the U.S. Army and went to Texas to be part of an aviation unit. There he contracted meningitis and died in 1918. After the war, Mansfield's wife worked with refugees from the Armenian genocide in Turkey and Palestine.