Robert Bruce Mantell (7 February 1854 – 27 June 1928) was a Scottish-born stage actor who made several silent films.

[7] When "Bobbie", as he was known, was five years old, his parents sold the Wheatsheaf and moved to Dublin to take over management of a larger public house, which they named the Eglington-Winton.

[10] When he resolved to pursue a career on the stage, his mother refused to assist him until he swore to change his name to Robert Hudson, and to go to America to ply his craft.

[citation needed] With this assurance given, his mother presented Robert with "the same little sum of money she had given his older brothers when they started out into the world".

[12] His first theatrical job (still using the name Robert Hudson) was with a stock company at the Theatre Royal, in Rochdale, Lancashire, where, on 21 October 1876, he made his stage debut in Dion Boucicault's Arrah-na-Pogue.

Using his real name for the first time, he won the part of Tybalt in the Leyland Opera House production of Romeo and Juliet.

There he joined George S. Knight's company, portraying Iago in Shakespeare's Othello opposite Frank Clement, who played the title character.

By 1890, "MantQell believed himself strong enough to venture on a tour on his own account, after the fashion of the English actor-managers and pocket all the profits".

[20] In 1892, he opened at New York's Proctors Theatre in Charles Osborne's The Face in the Moonlight, with Caroline Miskel, a young actress who was just at the beginning of her brief career on Broadway.

[22] When the lawyers finally resolved his alimony difficulties, Mantell – now significantly older – returned to New York, but not as a romantic lead, as he had been known for so many years, but as a classic tragedian.

One of his first leading roles after his return to New York was as Richard III, where he demonstrated that "the line of great tragedians on the American stage had not ended with Edwin Booth".