48 Facts About Dan Leno

George Wild Galvin, better known by the stage name Dan Leno, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era.

Dan Leno was best known, aside from his music hall act, for his dame roles in the annual pantomimes that were popular at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, from 1888 to 1904.

Dan Leno was born in St Pancras, London, and began to entertain as a child.

Dan Leno adopted the stage name Dan Leno and, in 1884, made his first performance under that name in London.

Dan Leno developed a music hall act of talking about life's mundane subjects, mixed with comic songs and surreal observations, and created a host of mostly working-class characters to illustrate his stories.

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Dan Leno appeared in burlesque and, every year from 1888 to 1904, in the Drury Lane Theatre's Christmas pantomime spectacles.

Dan Leno was generous and active in charitable causes, especially to benefit performers in need.

Dan Leno has appeared in musical comedies and his own music hall routines until 1902, although he suffered increasingly from alcoholism.

Dan Leno was committed to a mental asylum, but was discharged later that year.

In 1864, at the age of four, Dan Leno joined his parents on stage for the first time, at the Cosmotheca Music Hall in Paddington, under the billing "Little George, the Infant Wonder, Contortionist, and Posturer".

When Dan Leno was four years old, his alcoholic father died, aged 37; the family then moved to Liverpool, where his mother married William Grant, on 7 March 1866.

Dan Leno was a seasoned actor and had been employed by Charles Kean in his theatre company at the Princess's Theatre in London.

Dan Leno made his debut as a solo performer in 1869, returning to the Britannia music hall in Hoxton, where he became known as "The Great Little Dan Leno, the Quintessence of Irish Comedians".

Teenage Dan Leno's growing popularity led to bookings at, among others, the Varieties Theatre in Sheffield and the Star Music Hall in Manchester.

On 10 March 1884, the Dan Leno family took over the running of the Grand Varieties Theatre in Sheffield.

Dan Leno's dancing had earned him popularity in the provinces, but Leno found that his London audiences preferred these sketches and his comic songs.

Dan Leno was a replacement in the role of Leontes in the 1888 musical burlesque of the ancient Greek character Atalanta at the Strand Theatre, directed by Charles Hawtrey.

The character was created by exaggerating the behaviour that Dan Leno saw in a real employee at Brixton station who concerned himself in other people's business while, at the same time, not doing any work.

Dan Leno played the part of a shop assistant, again of manic demeanour, enticing imaginary clientele into the shop before launching into a frantic selling technique sung in verse.

The pantomime was a success, and Dan Leno received rave reviews; as a result, he was booked to star as Tinpanz the Tinker in the following year's pantomime, which had the unique title of Sinbad and the Little Old Man of the Sea; or, The Tinker, the Tailor, the Soldier, the Sailor, Apothecary, Ploughboy, Gentleman Thief.

Blanchard left the theatre when Dan Leno was hired, believing that music hall performers were unsuitable for his Christmas pantomimes.

Nevertheless, between April and October 1889, Dan Leno appeared simultaneously at the Empire Theatre and the Oxford Music Hall, performing his one-man show.

Dan Leno noted that Leno "was exceptional in giving each of his dames a personality of her own, from extravagant queen to artless gossip".

Dan Leno's agent declined the offer, as his client was solidly booked for two years.

Dan Leno toured the provinces in the piece and was an immediate success.

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In 1897, Dan Leno went to America and made his debut on 12 April of that year at Hammerstein's Olympia Music Hall on Broadway, where he was billed as "The Funniest Man on Earth".

Dan Leno wrote most of the paper's comic stories and jokes, and Tom Browne contributed many of the illustrations.

The Journal was known for its slogans, including "One Touch of Dan Leno Makes the Whole World Grin" and "Won't wash clothes but will mangle melancholy".

Journalist wrote, in the late 1890s, that Dan Leno was "probably the highest paid funny man in the world".

Dan Leno was always doing something, and had something else to do afterwards; or he had just been somewhere, was going somewhere else, and had several other appointments to follow.

Between 1901 and 1903, Dan Leno recorded more than twenty-five songs and monologues on the Gramophone and Typewriter Company label.

Dan Leno made 14 short films towards the end of his life, in which he portrayed a bumbling buffoon who struggles to carry out everyday tasks, such as riding a bicycle or opening a bottle of champagne.

Dan Leno performed a thirty-five-minute solo act that included two of his best-known songs: "How to Buy a House" and "The Huntsman".

Dan Leno was the first music hall performer to give a Royal Command Performance during the King's reign.

In 1883, Leno met Sarah Lydia Reynolds, a young dancer and comedy singer from Birmingham, while both were appearing at King Ohmy's Circus of Varieties, Rochdale.

Dan Leno is well known at this theatre and with proper training will prove a very clever actress.

Dan Leno owned "an acre or so" of land at the back of his house in Clapham Park, producing cabbages, potatoes, poultry, butter and eggs.

Dan Leno was an active fundraiser in this and in the Music Hall Benevolent Fund, of which he became the president.

Dan Leno began to drink heavily after performances, and, by 1901, like his father and stepfather before him, he had become an alcoholic.

Dan Leno gradually declined physically and mentally and displayed frequent bouts of erratic behaviour that began to affect his work.

Dan Leno suffered increasing deafness, which eventually caused problems on and off stage.

In 1901, during a production of Bluebeard, Dan Leno missed his verbal cue and, as a result, was left stuck up a tower for more than twenty minutes.

Frustrated at not being accepted as a serious actor, Dan Leno became obsessed with the idea of playing Richard III and other great Shakespearean roles, inundating the actor–manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree with his proposals.

Dan Leno attempted to persuade her to act alongside him in a Shakespearean season that Leno was willing to fund.

Dan Leno spent several months in Camberwell House Asylum, London, under the care of Dr Savage, who treated Dan Leno with "peace and quiet and a little water colouring".

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Concerned that Dan Leno might suffer a relapse, Arthur Collins employed Marie Lloyd to take his place.

Dan Leno received a telegram from the King congratulating him on his performance.

Dan Leno died at his home in London on 31 October 1904, aged 43, and was buried at Lambeth Cemetery, London.