Raymond, John T.

Raymond, John T. [né O'Brien] (1836–87), comic actor. Born in Buffalo, New York, he ran away from home and made his debut in Rochester in 1853, afterward playing in Philadelphia and Baltimore. He toured the South before joining Laura Keene's ensemble in 1861, calling attention to himself when he replaced Joseph Jefferson as Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin. Raymond gained stardom in 1874 as the daydreaming Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age, so stealing the play that it was rewritten and retitled Colonel Sellers. He continued to return to the role regularly until his death. Among his other noteworthy portrayals were Ichabod Crane in Wolfert's Roost (1879), Ferdinand Fresh in Fresh, the American (1881), and the wheeling‐dealing politician Gen. Limber in For Congress (1884). He was a slim, long‐faced actor, of whom William Winter wrote, “His humor was rich and jocund. He had an exceptional command over composure of countenance. He could deceive an observer by the sapient gravity of his visage, and he exerted that facial faculty with extraordinary comic effect.”