Richard Mansfield

Richard Mansfield (1857-1907), American actor, born in Berlin of British parents. In 1882, after appearing in the early comic operas of the British playwright-composer team of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, he left London for the United States. He soon became one of the leading romantic actors of the American theatre. Among Mansfield's successes—he was also his own manager and producer—were his 1890 production of Beau Brummel and his depictions of the dual personality in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887) and of the tragic hero in Cyrano de Bergerac (1898). In 1894 he produced Arms and the Man, the first US performance of a play by the British dramatist George Bernard Shaw. Mansfield's Shakespearean roles included Shylock, Richard III, Brutus, and Henry V. In 1906-1907 he played the title role in the first English-language production of Peer Gynt by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen.