Wyndham, Sir Charles

Wyndham, Sir Charles [ Charles Culverwell] (1837–1919), English actor-manager. He trained as a doctor, but his success in several amateur productions, under the name of Charles Wyndham which he later adopted legally, caused him to abandon medicine for the theatre, and he made his first appearance on the professional stage at the Royalty Theatre in 1862. He then went to the USA, where the Civil War was at its height, and enlisted in the Federal army as a surgeon. He twice resigned in 1863 to appear on stage, playing Osric to John Wilkes Booth's Hamlet in Washington and Thomas Brown to Mrs John Wood's Pocahontas in a revival of Barker's The Indian Princess in New York. After playing Charles Surface in Sheridan's The School for Scandal at Wallack's Theatre in 1869 he soon established a reputation as a light comedian, and from 1871 to 1873 led his own comedy company on an extended tour of the Middle West. Back in London in 1874 he made a great success in Bronson Howard's Saratoga (1870), in which he had appeared in America, renaming it Brighton. It was moved to the Criterion Theatre, with which Wyndham was to have a lifelong association, another success there being Albery's farce The Pink Dominoes (1877). He made it one of the foremost playhouses of London, and later built and managed the New Theatre (now the Albery) and Wyndham's Theatre with equal success. In 1883 he took his London actors on a long tour of America, the first completely English company to visit California and the Far West. On his return to England he was responsible for the production of many interesting new plays. A tall, handsome man, with a mobile, expressive face, he was at his best in high comedy but could play serious roles with conviction. One of his finest roles was David Garrick in T. W. Robertson's play of that name, which he first revived in 1886 and made his own. He was also outstanding in Henry Arthur Jones's The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894), The Liars (1897), and Mrs Dane's Defence (1900), Louis N. Parker and Murray Carson's Rosemary (1896), and Hubert Davies's The Mollusc (1907).

In this last play his leading lady was a fine actress, Mary Moore (1869–1931), the widow of James Albery, whom he married as his second wife in 1912. She appeared in many of his productions, and after his death continued to manage his theatres, leaving them on her death to the care of her son Bronson Albery and his stepbrother Howard Wyndham, Wyndham's son by his first wife.