Who's Who in the Theatre
Both works presented brief biographies of well-known members of the theatrical profession, listing all the productions they had appeared in, written, produced or been associated with.
[1][2] That book, published by Sealey Clark of London, was described by its publisher some months before publication as: A handsome volume of about 400 pages, containing detailed biographies (compiled from direct personal sources) of about 2,500 leading members of the Dramatic, Musical and Variety Professions, including Managers, Agents, Proprietors and Musical Directors.
[4] As with the general biographical dictionary of eminent contemporaries Who's Who, the book relied on information supplied by its subjects on a standard form issued by the editor to anyone he considered eligible for inclusion.
[10] It contained 563 octavo pages of biographies of people connected with the English-speaking theatre and a separate 62-page "Continental" section.
[9] Six years elapsed before the fourth edition (1922), in which more than 650 new biographies were added, but, as Parker noted in his preface, "the old school of Actor-Managers has practically disappeared [with the deaths of] Tree, Wyndham, Alexander, Hare, Kendal, H. B. Irving and Edward Compton.
The London playbill listings were expanded; the Continental section was dropped, and most of its entries disappeared, although a few, such as those for Sergei Diaghilev and Sacha Guitry, were retained in the main body of the book.
For the first time he cut entries for inactive performers, referring the reader to the previous edition for full details, but he added 500 new biographies.
[14] In the fourth edition Parker had explicitly excluded the cinema from the book, apart from occasional mention of film actors who had also made a stage career, but in the seventh edition (1933) he started to pay attention to activities in "Talking Pictures", although he delegated this to his son, John Parker, Jr.[9] This addition was welcomed by the theatrical paper The Era, which said, "No other volume devoted to the contemporary theatre contains so immense a number of facts and dates … the most comprehensive collection of theatrical data in existence".
The new editor omitted the genealogical tables of theatrical dynasties, but continued his father's tradition of including a short diverting article along with the major features, in this case a list of stars who pursued other occupations before going on the stage, including Tyrone Power (a soda-fountain dispenser) and Maurice Chevalier (an electrician).
)[22] This was the first edition to adopt the increasingly common practice for the terms "producer" and "director", using the first to signify the manager or promoter of a production and the latter for the person who is in charge of staging it.
It included a photographic section covering the five decades since 1912, starting with Tree as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII and ending with the Chichester Festival production of Uncle Vanya, by way of Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in Private Lives, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud as Romeo and Mercutio, and the casts of The Mousetrap, Waiting for Godot, My Fair Lady and another 27 productions.
There was no budget to employ outside researchers and Herbert recruited his wife and, in the words of The Guardian, "convert[ed] the front-room of their home into an office awash with programmes, cast-lists, and career biographies".
Between its completion and publication, the Gale Research company of Detroit, which had taken over as publisher, closed its London office, dispensed with Herbert and attempted to edit the book from its American headquarters.
In 1982 the company launched a series entitled Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, providing biographical articles on American and some British performers, and other people associated with stage and screen.
