Faversham, William (1868–1940), actor, director, and producer. Born and trained in London, he made his New York debut as Dick in Pen and Ink (1887), which was a quick failure, so he found himself stranded in America. But Faversham's boyish, curly‐haired good looks and his patent dramatic abilities caught Daniel Frohman's attention, and he quickly won acceptance in Frohman's productions and later playing opposite Mrs. Fiske. In 1893 he signed with Charles Frohman and for the next eight years assumed a variety of parts for him, including Algernon in the first American production of The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Romeo to Maude Adams's Juliet, as well as leading roles in Under the Red Robe, The Conquerors, Phroso, and Lord and Lady Algy. Subsequent performances of note included the dissolute yet noble Don Caesar de Bazan in A Royal Rival (1901), the exiled Englishman Capt. James Wynngate in The Squaw Man (1905), the title role in the tragedy Herod (1909), and the demigod who becomes a human prince in The Faun (1911), producing and staging the last two. Two high points in his career followed when he staged Julius Caesar (1912) and Othello (1914), playing Marc Antony and Iago. Walter Prichard Eaton wrote of the latter, “Where his ‘Othello’ differs from tradition is chiefly in Mr. Faversham's own interpretation of Iago, and the consequent hue that gives to the entire play. It is a novel, refreshing, stimulating impersonation, and it gives the drama a new vitality, a new holding power. . . . The keynote of his Iago is humor.” Faversham scored another hit when he played the Bishop of Chelsea in Shaw's Getting Married (1916), which he produced and directed. Thereafter, his career faltered, and much of it was spent in revivals of earlier successes. His final Broadway appearances were as the exiled King George in Her Friend, the King (1929) and in some 1931 Shakespearean revivals. The public last saw him when he toured as Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road in 1934.

• Born: Feb 12, 1968
• Died: Apr 07, 1940
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '20s-'30s
• Major Genres: Mystery, Western
• Career Highlights: Arizona Days, The Singing Buckaroo, The Secret of the Chateau
• First Major Screen Credit: Sixth Commandment (1924)

Biography

One of the last of the legendary actor-managers, William Faversham became a major name on Broadway in the original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. Faversham was much admired in such potboilers as Brother Officers (1900), which he revived twice that same year and the next, and he produced, directed, and starred in the original production of The Squaw Man (1906). Productions of both Julius Caesar (1914) and Othello (1917) followed and he became a motion picture star in 1915 courtesy of the burgeoning Metro company. At one point, Faversham's popularity at Metro was second only to that of Francis X. Bushman, the leading matinee idol of the era. Quite elderly by then, Faversham later appeared in bit roles in talkies, including portraying the Duke of Wellington in the Technicolor production of Becky Sharp and, of all things, playing the heroine's father in the low-budget singing cowboy oater The Singing Buckaroo (1937). Faversham's Broadway swan song had come in a 1931 repertory presentation of Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice. He was married to stage actresses Edith Campbell and Julia Opps and was the father of actor Philip Faversham. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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