Charles Hawtrey (actor, born 1858)

Sir Charles Henry Hawtrey (21 September 1858 – 30 July 1923) was an English actor, director, producer and manager.

He occasionally played in Sheridan and other classics, but was generally associated with new works by writers including Oscar Wilde and Somerset Maugham.

Once established as an actor he quickly took on the additional role of a manager, boosted by an early success with his own adaptation of a German farce presented in London as The Private Secretary, which made his fortune.

[1] Hawtrey was born at Slough and educated at Eton College, the fifth son and eighth of the ten children of the Rev.

[4] In February 1881 he matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford,[5] but withdrew in October, having been cast in the supporting role of Edward Langton in F. C. Burnand's The Colonel at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, London.

[6]In early 1882 Hawtrey played Jack Merryweather in The Marble Arch, which starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

[10] In 1884 Hawtrey had a huge success in London presenting his own adaptation of a German farce by Gustav von Moser, Der Bibliothekar, rewritten as The Private Secretary with the action moved to an English setting.

It moved from the Prince's to the Globe Theatre, the principal roles were recast (with Hawtrey playing the crusty old Cattermole), and in the words of The Manchester Guardian "the audiences steadily laughed it into a success.

His biographers H H Child and Michael Read list his most celebrated productions as two more adaptations from Moser (The Pickpocket, 1886, adapted by George Hawtrey, and The Arabian Nights, 1887, by Sydney Grundy); Jane (1890) by Harry Nicholls and William Lestocq; One Summer's Day (1897) by H. V. Esmond; Lord and Lady Algy (1898) by R. C. Carton co-starring with the author's wife, Katherine Compton;[15] A Message from Mars (1899) by Richard Ganthony; The Man from Blankley's (1906) by F. Anstey; and Ambrose Applejohn's Adventure (1921) by Walter Hackett, in which Hawtrey played two roles: a respectable modern man and his disreputable ancestor.

Among the young actors whose careers he encouraged was Noël Coward, who wrote in his memoirs about "the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction.

"[17] One of the dramatists that he promoted was Horace Newte whose one act drama A Labour of Love Hawtrey presented at The Comedy Theatre in 1897.

According to Ada Coleman, head bartender at the Savoy Hotel London, Hawtrey was responsible for naming the Hanky-Panky cocktail, which she created specifically for him.