Charles Macklin (September 26, 1690 –
July 11, 1797), originally MacLaughlin, was an actor and dramatist
born in the village of Culdaff in Inishowen, Co. Donegal, Ireland, and one of the most distinguished actors of his day, equally
in tragedy and comedy. He gained his greatest fame in the role of Shylock in The
Merchant of Venice.
As a youth he was an active swimmer and boxer; the latter activity was alleged to have made him even uglier than he was
naturally. He spent his early manhood as an itinerant actor in troupes travelling around Britain; his thick Irish accent was an
obstacle to success. He was acting at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1725; he eventually achieved a place at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1733.
In 1735 Macklin quarrelled with a fellow actor named Hallam and accidentally killed the man by thrusting his cane through
Hallam's eye. He was tried for murder, conducted his own defense, and won an acquittal. He married his former mistress, Ann
Grace, in 1739; by this time he had left his accent and his Roman Catholicism behind. Their daughter, Mary Macklin (ca.
1734 – 1781), was a well-known actress in her own era. His wife died
in December 1758; he married again the next year, to an Elizabeth Jones.
Macklin resisted playing Shylock as a comic figure, as had been done for half a century; he prepared for his role in an almost
Stanislavskian manner, researching Italian Jews like a modern method actor. He
debuted on Feb. 14, 1741, in a production that returned to Shakespeare's original text. His Shylock thrust him from being an
obscure player to the most famous actor of his time. King George II saw the
production and was so moved he couldn't fall asleep that night.
He played the role for nearly the next fifty years, as well as Iago in Othello and the
Ghost in Hamlet. In Ben Jonson's Volpone, he played the part of Mosca. He was the creator of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, a famous burlesque
character; and he was Macbeth at Covent Garden
in 1772, in a production with authentic Scottish costumes.
He wrote many plays, some failures, and some successful comedies, like Love a la Mode (1759), The School for
Husbands, or The Married Libertine (1761), and The Man of the World (1781). The True-Born Irishman (1763) was a
hit in Ireland, and a flop in England.
Macklin lived a tempestuous life, often involved in lawsuits – sometimes acting as his own lawyer as he had in his murder
trial, and sometimes winning. He died at least a centenarian; his wife gave his birth year as 1690, making him 107 at his death.
Though it was probable that his wife didn't know his real birth date. It is suggested that he was born in 1710. (see tablet
below).
Macklin is remembered today in his native Inishowen, where the Charles Macklin Autumn School is held each October in the
village of Culdaff.
This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910).
A Short Biographical Dictionary of English
Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
External links
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