21 Facts About Richard Mansfield

Richard Mansfield was an English actor-manager best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the play Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Richard Mansfield's parents were Hermine Kuchenmeister-Rudersdorf, a Russian-born operatic soprano, and Maurice Mansfield, a British London-based wine merchant.

Richard Mansfield was educated at Derby School, in Derby, England, where he studied painting in London.

Richard Mansfield's mother took him to America, where she was performing, but he returned to England at age 20.

Richard Mansfield continued to play the Gilbert and Sullivan comic "patter" roles on tour in Britain until 1881.

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Richard Mansfield created the role of Major General Stanley in the single copyright performance of The Pirates of Penzance in Paignton, England, in 1879.

Richard Mansfield left the D'Oyly Carte company in 1881, returned to London, and soon made his London debut in Jacques Offenbach's La boulangere.

Richard Mansfield played several further roles in London and then travelled to America in 1882, where he made his Broadway debut as Dromez in Bucalossi's Les Manteaux Noirs with a D'Oyly Carte touring company.

Richard Mansfield then appeared in Baltimore, Maryland, with another D'Oyly Carte troupe, as the Lord Chancellor in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe in December 1882.

Richard Mansfield suffered a bad ankle sprain only two days later and left the production, returning to New York.

Richard Mansfield appeared successfully in an original play, Prince Karl, and in several plays adapted from well-known stories, and his 1887 rendering of the title-characters in Thomas Russell Sullivan's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for Palmer's company at Madison Square Theatre, only a year after publication of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, created a profound impression.

Richard Mansfield continued his acting career but had begun a career as a theatrical manager in America in 1886.

Richard Mansfield produced the play Richard III in 1889 at the Globe Theatre.

Richard Mansfield often produced, starred in, and directed plays on Broadway, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Meridan Phelps.

Richard Mansfield began the new century on Broadway in the title role in King Henry V, followed by the title character in Monsieur Beaucaire, Brutus in Julius Caesar, Karl Heinrich in Old Heidelberg, and roles in Ivan the Terrible, A Parisian Romance, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, Alceste in The Misanthrope, The Scarlet Letter and Don Carlos, among others.

Richard Mansfield was the greatest actor of his hour, and one of the greatest of all times.

Richard Mansfield died in New London, Connecticut, in 1907 at age 50, from liver cancer.

Richard Mansfield was performing in the London production of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1888 during the time that Jack the Ripper was murdering women in London.

Richard Mansfield attempted to gain public favour and stem the criticism that he was receiving by offering a performance of the comedy Prince Karl for the benefit of the Suffragan Bishop of London's home and refuge fund for reformed prostitutes.

Richard Mansfield was married in 1892 to Beatrice Cameron, an actress.

The younger Richard Mansfield was an ambulance driver in France early during World War I, eagerly enlisting while underage.