Oswald Yorke

Oswald Yorke (née Oswald Parkinson Harker; 24 November 1866 – 25 January 1943) was a British character actor who had a near sixty-year career performing on both sides of the Atlantic.

Oswald Yorke
Annie Russell and Oswald Yorke in "Major Barbara" ca. 1906
Born
Oswald Parkinson Harker

(1866-11-24)24 November 1866
Poole, Dorset, England, United Kingdom
Died25 January 1943(1943-01-25) (aged 76)
New York City, New York, United States
OccupationActor
Years active1880s–1939
Spouse(s)Annie Russell
Ruth Guiterman

Early life

Oswald Parkinson Harker was born in Poole, Dorset,[1] the youngest of six children raised by Joseph and Sarah (née Parkinson) Harker. Yorke's father, a solicitor, was born in York, Yorkshire, while his mother was a native of Richmond, Yorkshire.[2][3] As a boy, Yorke attended Christ's Hospital Boys School, then located in Newgate.[4]

Career

Oswald Yorke first performed on stage in 1884 and later as a member of a company headed by British actor Sir Francis Robert Benson. Yorke’s London’s debut on 26 February 1889, at The Royal Strand Theatre, was followed early the next year by performances at London’s Vaudeville Theatre in such plays as School for Scandal, "A Pair of Lunatics" and "Meadow Sweet".[5][6][7] Oswald Yorke would remain a principal player with the Vaudeville Theatre throughout the balance of the 1890s.[8]

Ooswald Yorke (left) as Black Dog
with Bill Bones (Tim Murphy)

In 1896, Yorke toured America with Edward Smith Willard performing Henry Jones’ play The Rogue Comedy. The following year, he returned with Willard’s company with another of Jones’ works, The Physician.[9][10] In October 1900, he played an attaché with the French Embassy in The Eaglett, an adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon by Louis Napoleon Parker that starred Maude Adams.[11] By the next year, Yorke became associated with the Empire Theatre on Broadway, first appearing as Lieutenant Sir Walter Mannering opposite John Drew and Guy Standing in Roger Marshall’s The Second in Command.[12] Yorke stayed with Empire Theatre, then under the management of Charles Frohman, for a number of seasons. He went on to play Bill Walker in George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara with his actress wife Annie Russell at the Court Theatre in London and Broadway’s New Theatre, and later as Malvolio at the Century Theatre in Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night.[13]

Over the remainder of his life, the balance of Yorke’s career was spent in New York. He played in at least thirty-one Broadway productions between 1900 and 1938. Yorke was Black Dog in a 1915 adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island; Mr. Breen in the 1931 comedy "The Social Register" and Carter Hibbarb in George S. Kaufman’s 1938 success, First Lady. Yorke’s last Broadway performance, Justice Willis, came in the 1938 hit Oscar Wilde.[14]

During World War I, Yorke was put in charge of the entertainment of soldiers attached to the American Expeditionary Force in France. He was a member of The Lambs in New York and The Savage Club in London.[13]

Personal life

Yorke was married three times.

Yorke first married – on 2 June 1897, in Manhattan at Grace Church – co-actress Agnes Palmer (full stage name Maude Agnes Palmer; née Maud Atkins Palmer; 1872–1962), who grew-up in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. Agnes was the daughter of Lowell Mason Palmer (1834–1871) and Sarah Evelyn Palmer (née Sarah Evelyn Rogers; 1852–1940). Sarah, Agnes' mother, during childhood, changed her maiden name to Sarah Evelyn Atkins, taking on the surname of her uncle and maternal aunt, who became her adoptive parents upon the early deaths of her parents, John Foster Rogers (1825–1852) and Mercy C. Eldridge (maiden; 1830–1862). Agnes Palmer had joined E. S. Willard around February 1897.[15] Their marriage ended in divorce in Colorado – Agnes filed, claiming non-support. Agnes Palmer, on 5 September 1914, in Manhattan, married English actor Henry C. Vincent (né Henry Rojas; 1877–1962), with whom she remained married until his death in 1962, 4 months before hers.

Yorke married a second time – on 27 March 1904, in Manhattan[16] – to Major Barbara co-star Annie Russell (1864–1936). Around that time, the two were performing in a return engagement of Charles Frohman's production Mice and Men, a comedy by Madeleine Lucette Ryley. The play opened Monday, 29 February 1904, at the Garrick Theatre in New York and closed 12 March 1904. They divorced in 1929.[13]

Yorke married a third time – on 19 April 1938, in New Jersey – to Ruth Antoinette Guiterman (maiden; 1907–1980).

Death

Oswald Yorke died on 25 January 1943 at his apartment on West Forty-Fifth Street after a battle with lobar pneumonia. He was survived by his third wife, Ruth Guiterman,[13] who had lost her uncle, writer Arthur Guiterman, just two weeks prior.[17]

References
  1. England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915 – Births Registered in January, February, and March 1866, p. 204
    "Harker, Oswald" (Poole) Vol. 5a, Page 296 (link via FamilySearch.com)
    Oswald Harker's birth year, 1866, as quoted by some sources, may actually be 1865. That is, assuming the month and day is correct (24 November), the birth was recorded in the first quarter of 1866 by the General Register Office, Southport, England
  2. Oswald Harker, Poole, Dorst – 1871 England Census
  3. Oswald Yorke (born Poole, Dorset), "SS Franconia Passenger Manifest" (RMS Franconia), 19 October 1926
  4. Re: "Oswald Harker, Newgate, London," United Kingdom census, 1881
  5. "Vaudeville Theatre," Echo (London), 8 February 1890, p. 2
  6. "Literary and Art Notices," Jewish Standard (London), 7 March 1890, p. 3; OCLC 959383850
  7. "Vaudeville Theatre," Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London), 6 April 1890, p. 6
  8. "Vaudeville Theatre," Daily Mail (London), 22 September 1899, p. 4
  9. "This Week's New Bills," New York Times, 6 December 1896, p. 11
  10. "Gould Back From Europe," New York Times, 18 September 1897; p. 12 (Times Machine)
  11. "Maude Adams as the Stricken Eaglet," New York Times, 23 October 1900, p. 6
  12. "The Theatres Last Night," New York Times, 3 September 1901, p. 7
  13. "Oswald Yorke Dies; On Stage 58 Years," New York Times, 26 January 1943; p. 19
  14. Oswald Yorke - Internet Broadway Database
  15. "His Love Found a Way:New York World, Vol. 37, Whole No. 13,081, 13 June 1897
  16. "Reported Marriage Of Annie Russell; Actress Is Said to be the Bride of Oswald Yorke," New York Times, 28 March 1904
  17. "Guiterman, Poet and Playwright," New York Times, 12 January 1943; p. 23
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