John Lester Wallack

Wallack, [John Johnstone] Lester (1819–88), actor and manager. The son of James William Wallack, he was the only major member of the Wallack family born in America. However, despite his birth in New York, he acknowledged his English background by serving his theatrical apprenticeship in England and in Ireland. His American debut did not occur until 1847 when he appeared at the Broadway Theatre as Sir Charles Coldstream in Used Up. His contemporary, W. J. Florence, described him as “tall, straight as an Indian, graceful and distinguished in appearance. Piercing black eyes, an abundance of jet black hair, shapely limbs, small extremities, and, withal, a figure that permitted a perfect fitting of tastefully chosen clothes, were among the advantages that he once possessed and which made him almost Hyperion.” For a time he played under William Burton, where he won applause as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Charles Surface. When his father formed the ensemble that was to be one of America's great companies for over three decades, he joined it and within a few years took over its management. Wallack played nearly three hundred roles with the company, including Orlando, Benedick, and Marlow as well as leading parts in such contemporary works as Ours, Diplomacy, A Scrap of Paper, and his own dramatization of Rosedale. His tenure was praised for the excellence of his productions and his actors' performances but was also criticized for his failure to mount many classics and his dismissal of native American works. (He once told Bronson Howard that he might accept an early draft of Howard's Civil War play Shenandoah if it were reset in the Crimea.) With the rise of Augustin Daly in the 1870s, Wallack's star began to fade slightly; however, he remained an honored figure until his retirement in 1887. Autobiography: Memories of Fifty Years, 1889.

John Wallack

John Lester Wallack as Rob Roy

For the American cricketer, see John Lester

John Lester Wallack (born John Johnstone Wallack) (January 1, 1820 New York, NY - September 6, 1888 Stamford, CT), was an American actor and son of James William Wallack.

At one time in the British Army, then on the Dublin and London stage, he made his first stage appearance in New York in 1847 under the name of John Lester as Sir Charles Coldstream, in Boucicault's adaptation of Used Up.

He was manager, using the name Wallack, of the second Wallack's theatre from 1861, and in 1882 he opened the third at 30th Street and Broadway. This theatre was torn down in 1915. Among the productions staged at this theater was Margaret Mather's ill-fated production of Cymbeline in 1897.

His greatest successes were as Charles Surface, as Benedick, and especially as Elliot Grey in his own play Rosedale, and similar light comedy and romantic parts, for which his fascinating manners and handsome person well fitted him. He married a sister (d. 1909) of Sir John Millais. He wrote his own Memories of Fifty Years.

Publications

• M. J. Moses, Famous Actor-Families in America (New York, 1906)

References

•  "Wallack, James William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.  The second half of this article about his father, James William, is devoted to John Lester.
• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

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