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Biography
Sir Frank Robert Benson (1858-1939) was leading actor-manager of his generation and many actors (including Basil Rathbone, Leslie Banks and Robert Donat) received their early training in his company.
While at New College, Oxford, Benson, in 1881, produced the Agamemnon, the first play to be done there in the original Greek. (In the same year, he won the three-mile race against Cambridge.) In 1882, he made his first professional appearance at Sir Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, playing Paris in Romeo and Juliet. He then joined a touring Shakespearean company and, after the manager had disappeared, he bought the assets and, at the age of 25, started his long career as an actor-manager.
In 1886, he married Gertrude Constance Featherstonhaugh (1860-1946) who was a member of his company. The same year, Benson initiated an annual Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-upon-Avon. He was to remain associated with it until 1919, building it from a 7-day Festival into an internationally famous theatre company.
Throughout his career, he was primarily concerned with the production of Shakespeare's plays and his company regularly appeared in London as well as undertaking extensive tours of the provinces. It also visited Canada (1913) and South Africa (1921). His roles included Hamlet, Coriolanus, Henry V, Richard II, Lear, and Petruchio.
In 1901, he founded an acting school that continued to just before his death. In 1916, after his performance of Julius Caesar during the Shakespeare Tercentenary, he was knighted by King George V (allegedly with a property sword) in Drury Lane Theatre. The following day, at Stratford, he staged All's Well That Ends Well in which he played Parolles and his wife, Constance, played Helena. It was the first production since 1741 to use Shakespeare's text unedited.
| Items for Sale on Collectors' Post |
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| 012748 |
Theatre: Photos - Signed | F. R. BENSON - signed postcard |
| 012816 |
Theatre: Photos - Signed | F. R. BENSON - signed postcard |
| 012668 |
Theatre: Postcards - Pre 1920 | F. R. BENSON - postcard |
| 012703 |
Theatre: Postcards - Pre 1920 | F. R. BENSON - postcard |
| 013782 |
Theatre: Postcards - Pre 1920 | F. R. BENSON - miniature postcard |
| 015184 |
Theatre: Postcards - Pre 1920 | F. R. BENSON as Hamlet - postcard |
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