Leo Dryden
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| Leo Dryden | ||
 1890 Sheet music |
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name(s): | George Dryden Wheeler | |
| Date of birth: | June 6, 1863 | |
|---|---|---|
| Date of death: | April 21, 1939 (aged 75) | |
| Death location: | London | |
| Genre(s): | Music hall | |
| Spouse(s): | Hannah Chaplin 1892-3 | |
George Dryden Wheeler (6 June 1864 - 21 April 1939), was an English music hall 'vocal comic'. In 1892, he met Hannah Chaplin, mother of Charlie, and also a music hall performer. They had an affair, and a son, George Wheeler Dryden (31 August 1892), leading to the breakdown of her marriage to Charles Chaplin, Sr. Sadly the couple split up and the child was kept by Dryden, leading to bouts of mental illness, and admission to the Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon, this was the end of Hannah's career and the start of a long decline. She was not reunited with her son until the 1920s.
Leo Dryden was best known as the Kipling of the Halls[1] for his patriotic and colonial songs including The Miner's Dream of Home (1891); he also performed parodies, including Shopmates [2] and one on Feniculi Fenicula[3]. He dressed to fit the songs, as a Canadian Indian for The Great Mother, as an Indian soldier for India's Reply, and How India Kept Her Word (1898). Even America did not escape, with America Looking On, about the Boer War[4]. These examples of colonial fealty were well received by British audiences, and parodied in Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads. He was also known for tear jerking ballads such as Don't Go Down the Mine, Dad (1910), possibly inspired by the great 1907 mining disaster at St Genard in South Wales, and Good-bye, Mary! (1911). At the start of World War I, he returned to patriotic songs with Call Us and We’ll Soon Be There (1914).
Dryden also appeared in The Lady of the Lake (1925), an early sound film inspired by the Walter Scott poem.
By the 1930s, with the halls in decline, and his son joining his own half-brothers in America, Leo Dryden was reduced to busking in the streets. He died in London 21 April, 1939.
[edit] References
- ^ Popular Music in England, 1840-1914: A Social History Dave Russell (1987 McGill-Queen's Press) ISBN 0773505415 accessed 17 Oct 2007
- ^ Shopmates a parody on the popular song, Shipwrecked
- ^ My Great and Only (Kipling, notes by David Page) accessed 17 Oct 2007
- ^ New British War Songs 14 October 1900, New York Times accessed 17 Oct 2007
- The Miner's Dream of Home, Leo Dryden
[edit] External links
- Leo Dryden at the Internet Movie Database
- The Cat With Hands (2001) at the Internet Movie Database
- Words to The Miner's Dream of Home (bottom of page) Music
- Words to Don't Go Down in the Mine, Dad
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dryden, Leo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wheeler, George Dryden |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 6, 1863 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 21, 1939 (aged 75) |
| PLACE OF DEATH | London |
