Joseph Grimaldi - Last Years, Death and Legacy

Last Years, Death and Legacy

Grimaldi retired from the stage in 1823 as a result of ill-health. The years of extreme physical exertion his clowning had involved had taken a toll on his joints, and he suffered from a respiratory condition that often left him breathless. The Times noted in 1813:

Grimaldi is the most assiduous of all imaginable buffoons and it is absolutely surprising that any human head or hide can resist the rough trials he volunteers. Serious tumbles from serious heights, innumerable kicks, and incessant beatings come on him as matters of common occurrence, and leave him every night fresh and free for the next night's flagellation.

Although officially retired, Grimaldi still received half of his former small salary from Drury Lane until 1824. Soon after the fee stopped, Grimaldi fell into poverty after a number of ill-conceived business ventures and because he had entrusted management of his provincial earnings to people who cheated him. Despite his disabilities, he offered his services as a cameo performer in Christmas pantomimes. Along with Bologna, he re-appeared briefly at Sadler's Wells where he gave some acting instruction to the eighteen-year-old William Payne, who became a well known mime artist and was father of the Payne Brothers. He also started working for Richard Brinsley Peake, the son of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was the dramaturge at the English Opera House. Peake hired Grimaldi to star in Monkey Island alongside JS. However, Grimaldi's health deteriorated further and he was forced to quit before the show opened; his scene was cut. The early end to his career, worries about money, and the uncertainty over his son's future made him increasingly depressed. To make light of it, he would often joke about his condition: "I make you laugh at night but am Grim-all-day". In 1828 he appeared as Hock the German soldier and a drunken sailor in Thomas Dibdin's melodrama The Sixes; or, The Fiends at Sadler's Wells to an audience of 2,000 people. Unable to stand for long periods of time, he sang a duet with JS and finished the evening with a scene from Mother Goose. Grimaldi held a last farewell benefit performance on 27 June 1828 at Drury Lane. Between 1828 and 1836, Grimaldi relied on charity benefits to replace his lost income.

The relationship between Grimaldi and his son first became strained during the early 1820s. JS, who had made a career of emulating his father's act, received favourable notices as a clown performer, but his success was constantly overshadowed by that of his father. He became resentful of his father and publicly shunned any association with him. JS became an alcoholic and was increasingly unreliable. He became estranged from his parents in 1823, who saw their son only occasionally over the next four years, as JS went out of his way to avoid them. They communicated only through letters, with Grimaldi often sending his son notes begging for money. Although JS once replied: "At present I am in difficulties; but as long as I have a shilling you shall have half", there is no record of him ever sending money to his father. JS finally returned home in 1827, when the Grimaldis were awakened one night to discover their son standing in the street, feverish, emaciated and dishevelled.

After appearing in a few Christmas pantomimes and benefits for his father, JS's alcoholism led to unemployment and incarceration in a debtors' prison for a time. In 1832, Grimaldi, Mary and their son moved to Woolwich, but JS often abused his parents' hospitality by bringing home prostitutes and fighting with his alcoholic friends in the house. He moved out later that year and died at his lodgings on 11 December 1832, aged 30. With Grimaldi almost crippled, and Mary having suffered a stroke days before JS's death, they made a suicide pact. They took some poison, but the only result was a long bout of stomach cramps. Dismayed at their failure, they abandoned the idea of suicide.

Mary died in 1834, and Grimaldi moved to 33 Southampton Street, Islington, where he spent the last few years of his life alone as a depressed alcoholic. On 31 May 1837 he complained of a tightening of the chest but recuperated enough to attend his local public house, where he spent a convivial evening entertaining fellow patrons and drinking to excess. He returned home that evening and was found dead in bed by his housekeeper the following morning. The coroner recorded that he had "died by the visitation of God". Grimaldi was buried in St. James Churchyard, Pentonville, on 5 June 1837. The burial site and the area around it was later named Joseph Grimaldi Park.

After Grimaldi's death, Charles Dickens was invited by Richard Bentley to edit and improve Thomas Egerton Wilks's clumsily written life of Grimaldi, which had been based on the clown's own notes. As a child, Dickens saw Grimaldi perform at the Star Theatre, Rochester, in 1820. The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi sold well, to Dickens's surprise.

Grimaldi is remembered today in an annual memorial service on the first Sunday in February, at Holy Trinity Church in the London Borough of Hackney. The service, which has been held since the 1940s, attracts hundreds of clown performers from all over the world who attend the service in full clown costume.