Frohman, Charles

Frohman, Charles (1860–1915), American manager, who like his brothers Daniel and Gustave (below) inherited a passion for the theatre. From selling souvenirs and programmes he graduated to various managerial posts. He first visited England in 1880 as business manager of Haverly's Minstrels, for whom he achieved royal patronage. His first great success came in 1888–9 with Bronson Howard's Shenandoah, which laid the foundations of his fortune since he had shrewdly bought the American rights. In 1893 he opened the Empire Theatre with a fine stock company which he ran for many years. He soon had a controlling interest in many other theatres, in New York and elsewhere, and helped to organise the Theatrical Syndicate. In 1896 he had his first London success with Klein's A Night Out at the Vaudeville and then joined forces with the Gattis, with George Edwardes, and with Barrie, taking Edwardes's musical comedies and plays by Barrie and other notable playwrights to America. He took a long lease of the Duke of York's Theatre in London and mounted many notable productions there, including for the first time Barrie's Peter Pan (1904); at one time he controlled five London theatres. Frohman died when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915: a memorial to him stands in the churchyard at Great Marlow, Bucks. A small, odd-looking man, charming and kindly, who never used a written contract, he left a name for fair dealing and a record of remarkable theatrical achievements.