Herbert Beerbohm Tree
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Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ( December 17, 1852 - July 2, 1917) was an English actor-manager.
Born in London as Herbert Draper Beerbohm, Tree was the second son of Julius Beerbohm, a Lithuanian born businessman of German descent, and his English wife Constantia Draper [1]. His younger half-brother was the parodist and caricaturist Max Beerbohm.
Educated in Germany, he went on the stage in 1876 on his return to England, where he was noted for his Falstaff and Nick Bottom. By 1887 he was running the Haymarket Theatre in the West End of London. Ten years later, he was responsible for the construction of His Majesty's Theatre, also in the West End. He played many of the leading roles in his own elaborate productions, which included the premiere of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, in 1914.
He married Helen Maud Holt (1863-1937), who acted as Lady Tree and often played opposite him, in 1882. Iris Tree, the poet and actress, and the actress Viola Tree were their daughters. Tree fathered several illegitimate children with May Pinney, including film director Carol Reed and Peter Reed, the father of actor Oliver Reed.
Tree directed and starred in the earliest surviving film of an excerpt from a Shakespearean play: King John in 1899.
He founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1904 and was knighted in 1909.
He is the grandfather of Hollywood screenwriter and producer Ivan Moffat and is also the great great grandfather of actress Georgina Moffat.
[edit] References
In the musical Cats, Gus the Theatre Cat claims, "He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree."
