Early Life and Career
Theophilus Cibber was born during the Great Storm of 1703 and began acting in the Drury Lane Theatre at the age of 16 in 1721. As a young man, Cibber was a notorious rake, and associated with young men of a similar mind and reputation, such as the Duke of Wharton.
As the son of Colley Cibber, one of the theatre's managers, Theophilus became involved in the management of Drury Lane. In 1723, he became manager of the summer season, and in 1727 became assistant manager during the regular season. In 1732, one of the managers, Barton Booth, sold his share to John Highmore, and another of the managers, Robert Wilks, fell ill and died. Cibber senior became disenchanted by the involvement of Wilks' widow, through her representative John Ellys, in the management of the company. He dropped out of the management and leased his share in the company to his son. Cibber junior took the lead in the management of the theatre during the 1732–33 season, until he fell ill. The actions of Ellys and Highmore in his absence, which appear to have been largely centred on saving or making money, irritated Theophilus and friction grew between them. The other managers approached Cibber senior and offered to buy out his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Colley Cibber sold them his share for 3,000 guineas, and they promptly gave Theophilus his notice. Theophilus led the actors in a walkout and they set themselves up as rival, but informal, company of players in the Haymarket. The Cibbers applied for a letters patent to perform at the Haymarket, but it was refused, and the Drury Lane managers attempted to shut down Cibber by conspiring in the arrest of his leading actor, John Harper, on a charge of vagrancy. Public opinion swung to Theophilus' side, and Harper was released. The Drury Lane managers were defeated, and Theophilus regained control of the company on his own terms.
Theophilus married actress Jane Johnson and they had four children: Colley George in 1726, Catherine in 1727, Jane in 1729, and Elizabeth in 1732. Colley George and Catherine died in infancy, and their mother died at the age of 26 just after the birth of Elizabeth from puerperal fever. Jane and Elizabeth were raised in the house of their grandfather, Colley Cibber.
Read more about this topic: Theophilus Cibber
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Romenot by favor of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)
“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a mans career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)