Online Encyclopedia

EDWARD ASKEW SOTHERN (1826-1881)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 435 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EDWARD
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ASKEW SOTHERN (1826-1881)
  ,
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English actor, was born in Liverpool on the 1st of
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April 1826, the son of a merchant . He began acting as an amateur, and in 1849 drifted into a professional engagement with a dramatic
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company at St Heliers in Jersey, where he appeared as Claude Melnotte in Bulwer Lytton's Lady of Lyons . Between then and 1858 he played in various companies without particular success, in
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Birmingham and in
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America, where he went in 1852 . On the 12th of May 1858 Tom Taylor's Our
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American Cousin, a
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play of no
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special merit, was brought out in New York, with Sothern in the small
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part of Lord Dundreary, a caricature of an English nobleman . He gradually worked up the humour of this part so that it became the central figure of the play . In 1861, when it was produced at the Haymarket Theatre, in
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London, he made such a
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hit that the piece ran for nearly five
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hundred nights: "Dundreary whiskers " became the fashion, and Dundreary this, that or the other made its appearance on every side . At various times Sothern revived the character, which retained its popularity in spite of all the extravagances to which he
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developed its amusing features; and his name will always be famous in connexion with this role . In T . W . Robertson's David Garrick (1864) he again had a
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great success, his acting in the title-part, which he created, being wonderfully effective . He won wide popularity also from his interpretation of Sam Slingsby in Oxenford's
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Brother Sam (1865) . Sothern was a born comedian, and off the stage had a passion for
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practical joking that amounted almost to a
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mania .

His

house in
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Kensington was a resort for
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people of fashion, and he was as much a favourite in America as in the
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United
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Kingdom . He died in London on the 21st of
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January 1881 . Sothern had three sons, all actors, the second of them,
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EDWARD H . SOTHERN (b . 1859), being prominent on the American stage .

End of Article: EDWARD ASKEW SOTHERN (1826-1881)
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He is buried with his sister at the Old Cemetery by The Common at Southampton.
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