Hicks, Sir (Edward) Seymour

Hicks, Sir (Edward) Seymour (1871–1949), English dramatist and actor-manager. He began his stage career in 1887, and was for a long time with the Kendals, both in England and America. He also produced the first revue seen in London, Under the Clock (1893). In the course of his long career he topped the bill in the music-halls and appeared with equal success in musical comedy and straight plays, being particularly admired as Valentine Brown in Barrie's Quality Street (1902). Among his numerous plays the most successful were Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), frequently revived at Christmas up to 1937; The Gay Gordons (1907), in which he played Angus Graeme; Sleeping Partners (1917), in which his own performance was a tour de force of silent acting; and The Man in Dress Clothes (1922), which, like many of his plays, was taken from the French. He was manager of several London theatres, including the Aldwych, which he built and opened in 1905; the Globe (first named the Hicks), which he built for Charles Frohman and opened in 1907 with his own play The Beauty of Bath; and Daly's, where he inaugurated his management by playing Charles Popinot in Vintage Wine (1934). He was the first actor to take a party of entertainers to France in the First World War, and also the first to go to France during the Second World War. He married the actress Ellaline Terriss, who appeared with him in many of his productions.