Johnston Forbes-Robertson - Early Life

Early Life

Born in London, he was the eldest of the eleven children of John Forbes-Robertson, a theatre critic and journalist from Aberdeen, and his wife Frances. One of his sisters Frances (1866–1956) and three of his brothers, Ian Forbes-Robertson (1859–1936), Norman Forbes-Robertson (1858–1932) and John Kelt (Eric Forbes-Robertson) (1865–1935) also became actors. He was the brother-in-law of famed actress Maxine Elliott. The uncle of Roy Harrod the economist and he was also the great-uncle of actress Meriel Forbes (granddaughter of his brother Norman), who married the actor Sir Ralph Richardson.

He was educated at Charterhouse. Originally intending to become an artist, he initially trained for three years at the Royal Academy. He began a theatrical career, out of a desire to be self-supporting, when the dramatist William Gorman Wills, who had seen him in private theatricals. offered him a role in his play Mary Queen of Scots.

His many performances led him into, among other things, travel to the U.S., and work with Sir Henry Irving. He was hailed as one of the most individual and refined of English actors. He was a personal friend of the Duke of Sutherland and his family and often stayed with them at Trentham Hall; he is known to have recommended to them various writers and musicians in dire need of assistance.

Forbes-Robertson first came to prominence playing second leads to Henry Irving before making his mark as the greatest interpreter of Hamlet of the nineteenth century, according to many critics. One of his early successes was in W. S. Gilbert's Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith. In 1882, he starred with Lottie Venne and Marion Terry in G. W. Godfrey's comedy The Parvenu at the Court Theatre. He was noted for his elocution, particularly by George Bernard Shaw who wrote the part of Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra for him. Forbes-Robertson's other great roles were Romeo, Othello, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, and the leading role in The Passing of the Third Floor Back (filmed in 1916, released 1918). He did not play Hamlet until he was 44 years old, but after his success in the part he continued playing it until 1916, including a surviving silent film (1913) which indicates his greatness in the role. Shaw considered him the greatest Hamlet he had ever seen.

He was also a talented painter who did a portrait of his mentor Samuel Phelps that currently hangs in the Garrick Club in London. Forbes-Robertson acted in plays with the gifted actress Mary Anderson in the 1880s. He became smitten with her, fell in love with her and asked her hand in marriage. She kindly turned him down though they remained friends. Later he and actress Beatrice Campbell enjoyed a brief affair during the time she starred with him in a series of Shakespearean plays in the mid 1890s.