Who's Who on
Collectors' Post
|
Biography
Oscar Asche (1871-1936) was born in Australia to a Norwegian father and an Australian mother. He left school at sixteen and, after three years of traveling and working around Australia, decided to become an actor. After an initial training, he sailed to Britain, making his London debut in March 1893 in Man and Woman (1893) at the Opera Comique. Later that year, he joined Frank Benson’s Repertory Company. He stayed for eight years, performing many Shakespeare roles including Biondello in The Taming of the Shrew, Pistol in Henry V and the King in Hamlet.
While with the company, he met and, in 1898, married the actress Lily Brayton. In 1902, he left the Benson to join his wife who was already acting with Sir Beerbohm Tree. Two years later, both of them became, with Othu Stuart, joint managers of the Adelphi Theatre. The productions they mounted included The Prayer of the Sword, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew and Rudolf Besier’s The Virgin Goddess. In 1907, Asche and his wife took over the management of His Majesty’s Theatre where they produced Laurence Binyon’s Attila with Asche in the title role, as well as several more Shakespearian plays, including Othello.
In 1910 and 1911, the couple and their company toured Australia. On their return to London, Asche, at the Garrick Theatre, played Hajj in the musical Kismet that had been written for him by Edward Knobloch. It ran for two years, followed by an Australian tour. The company then visited South Africa. Asche was keen to see something of the country because he had decided to stage an adaptation of Rider Haggard’s novel A Child of the Storm. Renamed Mameena, it opened in London in October 1914, just after war had been declared. It was not a success.
Asche then wrote the book and lyrics – allegedly in two weeks – for a new show with music by Fredric Norton. He directed and starred in the musical opposite his wife. Chu Chin Chow opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on August 31, 1916. Breaking all records, it ran for five years, closing on July 2, 1921. During the run of the show, Asche directed another successful musical, The Maid of the Mountains (1917).
To follow his phenomenal success, Asche wrote another musical, Cairo. It opened on Broadway in 1920 and in London the following year. It was unsuccessful on both sides of the Atlantic. Asche spent 1922 to 1924 touring Australia with Chu Chin Chow, Cairo and several Shakespeare productions. On his return to Britain, as a result of excessive gambling, tax debts and unwise investments, he was declared bankrupt. Further successes eluded him as he tried to mount musicals, made appearances in a few films and wrote several books, including his autobiography. In 1933 he made his last stage appearance in The Beggar’s Bowl at the Duke of York’s Theatre.
In his final years, the man who was one of the great theatrical innovators became grossly fat, desperately poor, argumentative with a violent temper and estranged from his wife. At the end, he returned to her and died at her house in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on March 23, 1936.
| Items for Sale on Collectors' Post |
| Click for details |
|
