43 Facts About Charlotte Charke

Charlotte Charke was an English actress, playwright, novelist, and autobiographer.

Charlotte Charke began acting at the age of seventeen in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off stage as well, performing and being publicly known as "Charles Brown" from 1741.

Charlotte Charke's father was actor, playwright, and poet laureate Colley Cibber, and her mother was musician and actress Katherine Shore.

Family members and friends say Charlotte Charke began to show an "addiction" to manly activities at a young age.

Since her father was often absent due to business endeavors and her mother was frequently sick, Charlotte Charke became independent at a young age.

Charlotte Charke suggested that her identification with the male gender began early in her life, and recalled impersonating her father as a small child.

Charlotte Charke was not successful, and in 1729, she returned to London to live with her father.

The marriage was short-lived, as Charlotte Charke believed her husband has been motivated by his own poor finances and her father's wealthy status.

Charlotte Charke became interested in travesty roles, or male roles played by women.

Around this time, Charlotte Charke began intermittently wearing male clothing off the stage.

In 1733, Cibber sold his controlling interest in the Drury Lane Theatre to John Highmore, which upset Charlotte Charke, who felt that it should have been passed on to her and her brother, Theophilus Cibber.

Charlotte Charke was denied entry to many theatres once she left Drury Lane.

Charlotte Charke had become estranged from her husband Richard, who had remained with the acting company at Drury Lane, upset by his costly gambling habits and frequent affairs.

In 1738, Charlotte Charke was granted the uncommon privilege of a license to run Punch's Theatre at St James's.

Charlotte Charke sent young Catherine off with begging notes to her friends and relatives, but no one in her family was willing or able to help her monetarily.

Charlotte Charke's father remained furious with her for the Drury Lane actors' revolt, as well as her unflattering impression of him in Pasquin, which had been conceived by his old enemy Fielding.

Charlotte Charke received some financial support from fellow actors, and when she was eventually arrested and imprisoned for her debt, coffee-house keepers and prostitutes from Covent Garden banded together to pay her bail.

Charlotte Charke passed so well as a man that she received romantic attention from an unnamed orphan heiress, speculated to be Mary Harlowe.

Charlotte Charke continued to work as a man and served as a sausage maker as well as a valet to Richard Annesley, the sixth Earl of Anglesey.

Charlotte Charke claimed that when Anglesey was not entertaining guests, the trio would dine together as friendly equals.

Charlotte Charke was dispossessed of his lands, but allowed to keep his title.

In 1742, Charlotte Charke joined a new acting company in the New Theatre in St James's and produced her second play, Tit for Tat, or, Comedy and Tragedy at War.

Charlotte Charke joined her brother, Theophilus, at the Haymarket in 1744, before joining William Hallam's company.

Charlotte Charke married John Sacheverell in 1746, though little is known about their relationship.

Charlotte Charke remained in severe poverty after the opening and closure of her theatre.

Charlotte Charke was offered the leading male role of Punch in a new puppet theatre, which was an artistic and financial success for Charke.

Charlotte Charke attempted to buy the theatre's puppets from Russell's landlord, but she could not meet his asking price, and the little company passed out of existence.

Creditors retained an unproduced script by Russell as collateral, preventing Charlotte Charke from staging it as she had planned to do.

Sometime in 1747, Charlotte Charke travelled the West Country with her daughter, performing as a strolling player.

Charlotte Charke found many of the players difficult and untalented compared to those she had known in her privileged youth.

In 1758, Charlotte Charke found herself alone again when her daughter, Catherine, and her husband moved to America.

Charlotte Charke attempted to return to the stage in 1759, in the breeches role of Marplot in Susanna Centlivre's The Busybody.

The final chapter of Charlotte Charke's life was defined by her writing, in which she saw a path to repairing her relationship with her father.

However, Charlotte Charke was an infamous public figure due to her father's stature and her own career.

Charlotte Charke began writing her autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Charlotte Charke which was published in well-received installments and then as two full editions.

Charlotte Charke's tone is described as like her father's; chatty, witty, relaxed, and intimate.

Charlotte Charke wrote the autobiography, she said, to reconcile herself with her father, although it was not successful.

Charlotte Charke refused to communicate with her, returning letters unopened.

Charlotte Charke published the short stories The Mercer, and The History of Charley and Patty sometime between the years of 1757 and 1759.

Charlotte Charke's reception tends to be skewed based on the audience of her works.

Charlotte Charke has received mixed reactions from contemporary literary authors and critics, modern scholars, and her own family.

Charlotte Charke was financially cut off from the family and effectively disowned, with her father refusing to speak to her or even read her work.

Later criticism of Charlotte Charke's autobiography appeared in John Fyvie's novel Comedy Queens of the Georgian Era, which recalls the juxtaposition of Charlotte Charke's popular reception and the impoverished reality of her life.