Richard Mansfield

He is best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was one of the earliest to produce George Bernard Shaw’s plays in America. He also produced, starred in and directed plays on Broadway, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Meridan Phelps.

About Richard Mansfield in brief

Richard Mansfield was an English actor-manager. He is best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was one of the earliest to produce George Bernard Shaw’s plays in America, appearing in 1894 as Bluntschli in Arms and the Man’s Arms. He also produced, starred in and directed plays on Broadway, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Meridan Phelps. He began the new century on Broadway in 1890s in Napoleon Bonarte, Julius Caesar, and The First Violin Violin, the title role in The Old Brutus. He died in London in 1897. He had a son, Maurice Mansfield, who was a British wine merchant and a grandson, Joseph Rudersdorff, a violinist and operatic soprano.

Mansfield also had a daughter, Mary, who became an actress and later a television presenter. She was married to the British actor and director, Sir David Wilson, until his death in 1930. He left the theatre to become a theatrical manager in America in 1886. He later became a director and producer of plays in England and America. His son, Richard Mansfield Jr, was a successful theatre director and director of his own production company, The Makers, in London and in the U.S. in the early 1990s.

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