William Hunter Kendal (16 December 1843 – 7 November 1917) was an English actor and
theatre manager. He and his wife
Madge starred at the
Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies beginning in the 1860s. In the 1870s, they starred in a series of "fairy comedies" by
W. S. Gilbert and in many plays on the West End with the
Bancrofts and others. In the 1880s, they starred at and jointly managed (with
John Hare) the
St. James's Theatre. They then enjoyed a long touring career.
Kendal was born
William Hunter Grimston in London, the eldest son of Edward Hunter Grimston, and his wife, Louisa
née Rider. His maternal grandfather was a painter, and the boy demonstrated early talent in painting, but his parents urged him to study medicine. He often visited the
Soho Theatre to sketch the performers, which led to his trying acting, in 1861, as
Louis XIV, in
A Life's Revenge, billed as "Mr Kendall".
Kendal continued at the Soho for two years and then played provincial theatres, including in Glasgow, where he performed for four years, with Charles Kean and others, until 1866.[2] He joined J. B. Buckstone's company at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1866, where he performed in a wide variety of works, from burlesque to Shakespeare and was particularly admired for his comic roles. In 1869 he married Madge Kendal, a sister of the dramatist, T. W. Robertson. As "Mr. and Mrs. Kendal", their professional careers became inseparable, and he invariably acted opposite his wife.[1]
His roles included Colonel Blake in J. Palgrave Simpson's A Scrap of Paper, Charles Surface opposite his wife's Lady Teazle, Orlando to her Rosalind in As You Like It (1871), Jack Absolute to her Lydia Languish in The Rivals (1870), and Young Marlowe to her Kate Hardcastle. He was also Captain Beauclerc in Diplomacy, William in William and Susan, W. G. Wills's customized rewriting of Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan, and Aubrey Tanqueray to his wife's Paula in Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray.[1] He was Pygmalion to his wife's Galatea in W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and the pair starred in the series of "fairy comedies" by Gilbert in the early 1870s, including The Palace of Truth (1870), Broken Hearts, The Wicked World (1873) and Broken Hearts (1875), as well as Gilbert's drama Charity (1874).[3]
Kendal and his wife starred at and managed the Royal Court Theatre with John Hare. They then played at the Prince of Wales's Theatre under the management of the Bancrofts in Diplomacy by B. C. Stephenson and Clement Scott (1878, adapted from Sardou's Dora), among other plays. In 1879 they began a long association with John Hare as joint-managers of the St. James's Theatre, where they presented a large number of Arthur Wing Pinero plays, among many others. The Kendals restored the St. James's to popularity and helped to improve the respectability of the Victorian theatre, which had fallen into disrepute among the middle classes. They imposed a high moral code both on stage and behind the scenes.[1] Some of the Kendals' other notable successes in the 1880s included The Squire, Impulse, The Ironmaster and A Scrap of Paper. In 1888, however, the Hare and Kendal partnership ended.
From that time, the Kendals chiefly toured. They made their American debut in A Scrap of Paper in 1889, and the success of their first tour in North America was repeated in several successive American seasons, where they spent most of the next five years. They continued to appear in popular plays without interruption until 1908, when they both retired. They had five children, but they became estranged from them.[1]
Kendal was a skilful businessman, manager and art collector, investing his share of the theatre's profits, after making sure to purchase some jewellery for his wife and a painting for himself. He assembled a fine collection of contemporary paintings, which the couple displayed in their homes. He was a long-time member of the Garrick Club, and his wife donated a portrait of him by Hugh Walpole to the club. He joined the Junior Carlton, Beefsteak, Arts, Cosmopolitan, and AA clubs.[1] He enjoyed fishing, shooting, cycling and riding.[2]
Kendal died in 1917, aged 74, in London.
Dame Madge Kendal,
DBE (born
Margaret Shafto Robertson; 15 March 1848 – 14 September 1935) was an English actress of the
Victorian and
Edwardian eras, best known for her roles in
Shakespeare and English comedies. Together with her husband,
W. H. Kendal, she became an important theatre manager.
Kendal was born in Cleethorpes, reportedly the youngest of 22 children of Margharetta Elisabetta Robertson (née Marinus; died 1876), a native of Denmark, and her English husband, William Robertson (died 1872), who joined his wife's family of actors and became their manager in 1830. One of Kendal's brothers was T.W. Robertson, a dramatist who led the movement toward naturalistic acting and design in theatre.[1] One of her sisters, Fanny Robertson, was also an actress.[2] Kendal was home-schooled by a governess and her father, who read Shakespeare to her from an early age.[3][page needed]
In 1854, Kendal had her first speaking role as Marie in the drama The Struggle for Gold by Edward Stirling under her father's management. She next appeared with her family as a blind girl, Jeannie, in the stage adaptation of The Seven Poor Travellers by Charles Dickens. Her family was engaged by in Bristol the next year, where Kendal played in an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin as Eva. Although she sang well as a child, she contracted diphtheria, and her voice suffered after the removal of her tonsils. Nevertheless, she played a singing role in A Midsummer Night's Dream, with songs by Felix Mendelssohn, at the Bath Theatre in 1863, starring sisters Ellen and Kate Terry as Titania and Oberon, respectively. Throughout this period, she performed with her family in Bristol and Bath.[1]
In 1865, Kendal was playing adult roles in London, beginning with Ophelia in Hamlet, Blanche in King John and Desdemona in Othello at the Haymarket Theatre in London. She was Mary Meredith in Our American Cousin with Sothern, and Pauline to his Claud Melnotte. But her most notable early successes were at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies. At the Haymarket, she starred with and met her future husband, W. H. Kendal, whom she married in 1869. Kendal played Rosalind, Lady Teazle, Lydia Languish and Kate Hardcastle, while her husband played Orlando, Charles Surface, Jack Absolute and Young Marlowe. The two thereafter acted mostly together. She then toured the provinces, joining the playwright and theatre manager William Brough[4] and the actor Samuel Phelps in 1866 at the Theatre Royal, Hull. She substituted in the role of Lady Macbeth, for an actress who was ill, opposite Phelps, who engaged her to appear as Lady Teazle at the Standard Theatre, Shoreditch, opposite his Sir Peter in The School for Scandal. During the following years, her reputation grew during engagements with F. B. Chatterton at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, E. A. Sothern at the Haymarket, and John Hollingshead at the Gaiety Theatre, London, as well as provincial appearances.
In 1868, Kendal joined the company of J. B. Buckstone on tour and then at the Haymarket, continuing with this troupe until 1874. She married William Hunter Grimston, an actor in the company who appeared under the name W. H. Kendal, on 7 August 1869, and adopted his stage name. With Buckstone's company, Madge Kendal enjoyed a string of successes, usually opposite her husband, playing as Lilian Vavasour in New Men and Old Acres by Tom Taylor (1869), Lydia Languish in The Rivals (1870), Rosalind in As You Like It (1871),[1] and a series of "fairy comedies" by W. S. Gilbert, including Princess Zeolide in The Palace of Truth (1870), Galatea in Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), Selene in The Wicked World (1873) and the Lady Hilda in Broken Hearts (1875), and Mrs Van Brugh in his drama Charity (1874).[5]
After this, Kendal played at the Opera Comique and the Court Theatre, which they managed for a time before joining the company of the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. There, she played Dora in Diplomacy by B. C. Stephenson and Clement Scott (1878, adapted from Victorien Sardou's Dora), among other roles. Between 1879 and 1888, Kendal and her husband managed the St. James's Theatre with John Hare and presented a large number of Arthur Wing Pinero plays, among many others. Mrs. Kendal played Lady Giovanna in The Falcon by Tennyson (1879), Susan in William and Susan, Kate Verity in The Squire by Pinero (1881), repeated her Rosalind in As You Like It (1885). The Kendals restored the St. James's to popularity and helped to improve the respectability of the Victorian theatre, which had fallen into disrepute among the middle classes. They imposed a high moral code both on stage and behind the scenes.
Some of the Kendals' other notable successes in the 1880s included
The Squire by
Arthur Wing Pinero,
Impulse by
B. C. Stephenson,
The Ironmaster, an English version by Pinero of
Le Maitre des Forges by
Georges Ohnet,
[6] and
A Scrap of Paper by
John Palgrave Simpson, an adaptation of
Les Pattes de mouche by Sardou. In 1888, the Hare and Kendal partnership ended.
George Bernard Shaw wrote of her 1886 performance in
The Greatest of These by
Sydney Grundy at the
Garrick Theatre, "her finish of execution, her individuality and charm of style, her appetisingly witty conception of her effects, her mastery of her art and of herself … are all there, making her still supreme among English actresses in high comedy."
[7] During this period, Kendal learned of the case of
Joseph Merrick, referred to as the Elephant Man. Although she probably never met him in person, she helped to raise funds and public sympathy for him. She sent him photographs of herself and employed a basket weaver to go to his rooms and teach him the craft, and she arranged for him to see a Christmas
pantomime.
The Kendals made their American debut in A Scrap of Paper in 1889, and the success of their first tour in the United States was repeated in several successive American seasons, where they spent most of the next five years. In 1902, she appeared as Mistress Ford opposite the Mistress Page of her childhood friend Ellen Terry in The Merry Wives of Windsor with Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company. The Kendals continued to appear in popular plays without interruption until 1908, when they both retired, though Mrs Kendal reprised her Mistress Ford at the coronation gala of 1911 at His Majesty's Theatre.[1]
The Kendals had five children, but they reportedly were estranged from them. Her husband died in 1917. In retirement, Madge Kendal became active with many theatre charities, becoming president of the actors' retirement home, Denville Hall. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1926.
Kendal died at her home in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, in 1935, aged 87, after a long illness.[9] She was buried at St Marylebone cemetery in East Finchley.
Kendal is a featured character in the 1979 play
The Elephant Man[10] and the unrelated 1980
film of the same name, both based on the life of
Joseph Merrick. In the film, Kendal was portrayed by
Anne Bancroft.
The
cabinet card was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 108 by 165 mm (
4 1⁄4 by
6 1⁄2 inches).
The carte de visite was displaced by the larger cabinet card in the 1880s. In the early 1860s, both types of photographs were essentially the same in process and design. Both were most often albumen prints, the primary difference being the cabinet card was larger and usually included extensive logos and information on the reverse side of the card to advertise the photographer’s services. However, later into its popularity, other types of papers began to replace the albumen process. Despite the similarity, the cabinet card format was initially used for landscape views before it was adopted for portraiture.
Some cabinet card images from the 1890s have the appearance of a black-and-white photograph in contrast to the distinctive sepia toning notable in the albumen print process. These photographs have a neutral image tone and were most likely produced on a matte collodion, gelatin or gelatin bromide paper.
Sometimes images from this period can be identified by a greenish cast. Gelatin papers were introduced in the 1870s and started gaining acceptance in the 1880s and 1890s as the gelatin bromide papers became popular. Matte collodion was used in the same period. A true black-and-white image on a cabinet card is likely to have been produced in the 1890s or after 1900. The last cabinet cards were produced in the 1920s, even as late as 1924.
Owing to the larger image size, the cabinet card steadily increased in popularity during the second half of the 1860s and into the 1870s, replacing the carte de visite as the most popular form of portraiture. The cabinet card was large enough to be easily viewed from across the room when typically displayed on a cabinet, which is probably why they became known as such in the vernacular. However, when the renowned Civil War photographer Mathew Brady first started offering them to his clientele towards the end of 1865, he used the trademark "Imperial Carte-de-Visite."[1] Whatever the name, the popular print format joined the photograph album as a fixture in the late 19th-century Victorian parlor.
The reverse side of the card as seen above.
Early in its introduction, the cabinet card ushered in the temporary disuse of the photographic album which had come into existence commercially with the carte de visite. Photographers began employing artists to retouch photographs by altering the negative before making the print to hide facial defects revealed by the new format. Small stands and photograph frames for the tabletop replaced the heavy photograph album. Photo album manufacturers responded by producing albums with pages primarily for cabinet cards with a few pages in the back reserved for the old family carte de visite prints.
For nearly three decades after the 1860s, the commercial portraiture industry was dominated by the carte de visite and cabinet card formats. In the decade before 1900, the number and variety of card photograph styles expanded in response to declining sales. Manufacturers of standardized card stock and print materials hoped to stimulate sales and retain public interest in card photographs. However, the public increasingly demanded outdoor and candid photographs with enlarged prints which they could frame or smaller unmounted snapshots they could collect in scrapbooks.
Owing in part to the immense popularity of the affordable Kodak Box Brownie camera, first introduced in 1900, the public increasingly began taking their own photographs, and thus the popularity of the cabinet card declined.
La
photo-carte de visite est un format de
photographie d´une personne qui apparaît en
1854 en France et qui rencontre un succès massif jusqu´aux premières années du
XXe siècle.
C´est l´évolution des techniques de photographie qui permet l´apparition de la photo-carte de visite. Le processus du négatif sur plaque de verre au collodion humide avec un report sur papier albuminé inventé par Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard en 1850 supplante le daguerréotype, il est plus souple et plus économique. Louis Dodéro, est le premier qui produit à Marseille des portraits photographiques au format dit carte-de-visite1, mais c´est André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, un photographe parisien, qui dépose en 1854 un brevet permettant la réalisation de huit clichés sur la même plaque de verre.
Les petites photos, au format 5,2 cm sur 8,7 cm, sont ensuite collées sur un carton qui adopte le format d´une carte de visite, 6,2 cm sur 10,3 cm. Le nom du photographe apparaît imprimé sous la photo. Les dos, d´abord vierges, sont ensuite utilisés pour la publicité du studio. Une vingtaine de cartonniers en France fournissent les photographes en cartons imprimés2, souvent très décorés, faisant mention de médailles reçues, de recommandations officielles.
Disdéri popularise intelligemment son procédé, utilisant la caution de personnalités qu´il a photographiées, notamment l´empereur Napoléon III. Très vite le phénomène se développe, d´abord dans les milieux bourgeois, puis dans toutes les familles voulant acquérir une certaine reconnaissance sociale. D´autres photographes adoptent le format et l´engouement est tel que la production de photos-cartes de visite atteint des volumes industriels. Dans les années 1860, des centaines d´ateliers photographiques s´ouvrent à Paris et dans les grandes villes de province, l'essor de la photo-carte de visite est une des principales raisons de ce développement fulgurant des ateliers de photographes, en France et à l´étranger.
En 1872, il sort des ateliers de Disderi 2 400 photos-cartes par jour. Une base de données, réalisée par François Boisjoly propose plus de 22 000 photographies et présente plus de 16 000 noms et adresses d´hommes ayant vécu pour et par la photographie à cette époque3.
The carte de visite[1] (abbreviated CdV or CDV, and also spelled carte-de-visite or erroneously referred to as carte de ville) was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris, France by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero.[2][3] It was usually made of an albumen print, which was a thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is 54.0 mm (2.125 in) × 89 mm (3.5 in) mounted on a card sized 64 mm (2.5 in) × 100 mm (4 in). In 1854, Disdéri had also patented a method of taking eight separate negatives on a single plate, which reduced production costs. The Carte de Visite was slow to gain widespread use until 1859, when Disdéri published Emperor Napoleon III´s photos in this format.[4] This made the format an overnight success. The new invention was so popular it was known as "cardomania"[5] and it spread throughout Europe and then quickly to America and the rest of the world.
Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and such photograph cards were traded among friends and visitors. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons.
By the early 1870s, cartes de visite were supplanted by "cabinet cards," which were also usually albumen prints, but larger, mounted on cardboard backs measuring 110 mm (4.5 in) by 170 mm (6.5 in). Cabinet cards remained popular into the early 20th century, when Kodak introduced the Brownie camera and home snapshot photography became a mass phenomenon.
De carte de visite is een type foto, die vooral in de 19e eeuw werd gebruikt.
De Fransman André Disdéri verkreeg in 1854 het patent voor de carte de visite. Cartes de visite waren een soort kartonnen visitekaartjes, waarop een albuminen foto, meestal een portret, werd afgedrukt. Ze hebben een grootte van ca. 6 x 8,5 centimeter. Ze waren vooral bestemd voor privégebruik, al werden er ook cartes de visite verkocht van het koninklijk huis en is van de Amerikaanse Sojourner Truth bekend dat zij de kaartjes verkocht om geld in te zamelen.
Een bekend Nederlands carte de visite-fotograaf was Israël Kiek, aan wie we het begrip Kiekje danken. Tegen de Eerste Wereldoorlog liep de vraag naar cartes de visite terug, onder andere door de toenemende concurrentie en de opkomst van andere vormen van fotografie.