Sam Cowell | |
|---|---|
 Cowell as "Lord Lovell" | |
| Born | Samuel Houghton Cowell 5 April 1820 London, England |
| Died | 11 March 1864 (aged 43) Blandford Forum, Dorset, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, singer, comic entertainer |
| Years active | 1829–1863 |
Samuel Houghton Cowell (5 April 1820 – 11 March 1864) was an actor and singer of comical songs. He was born in England and raised in the United States.
Born in London, he was the son of Joseph Cowell, a British actor who took him to the United States in 1822. [1] He was educated in a military academy near Philadelphia, and worked as a child actor in the United States. He first appeared there aged nine in Boston as Crack in The Turnpike Gate, a play by Thomas Knight, in which he sang a duet with his father "When off in curricle we go". [1] Thereafter, he appeared at many major theatres in America, hailed as "the young American Roscius". [1] He also appeared in Shakespeare plays, notably in the Comedy of Errors playing one of twin brothers, with his father playing the other. [1]
At the age of 20, he returned to Britain, first to Edinburgh where he became a successful actor working for his uncle W. H. Murray, who managed the Theatre Royal and the Adelphi there. [1] He also succeeded as a comic singer in entr'actes, [1] and by the late 1840s concentrated entirely on singing. [2] As his career developed, he became primarily a music hall artist, performing comical songs and burlesques in London song and supper rooms. Songs that he made famous included "The Ratcatcher's Daughter" and "Villikins and his Dinah". [3] [4]
Cowell became extremely popular and successful, and is credited with establishing the music hall, a new form of entertainment. [4] He appeared twice before Queen Victoria at her court theatricals. [1] According to music hall historian Harold Scott, Cowell was "a vividly remembered personality.. [who] ranks.. among the greatest exponents of entertainment." [5]
He toured throughout England, staging a concert almost every night between 1857 and 1859. His schedule led to overwork, and to alcohol dependence. [2] In 1860, he returned to America to tour, again with a very busy schedule. His health, previously robust, began to break down; [1] his wife's diary described him at one point as "feeble as an infant... merely skin and bone", but he continued to tour in the U.S. and Canada. [2]
He developed consumption after his return to London in 1862. He continued to act in the provinces. [6] Eventually his failing health made it impossible for him to continue performing and, in 1863, he was declared bankrupt. [7] He moved with his family to stay with friends in Blandford Forum, Dorset, to recuperate.
Sam Cowell died in the following March and was buried in the cemetery at Blandford Forum, where there is a monument to him erected by his friends. [1] [8]
He married Emilie Marguerite Ebsworth and they had eight children. The two daughters, Sydney Cowell (1846–1925) and Florence Cowell, and one of their sons, Joseph, were actors. [1]
Leslie Stuart born Thomas Augustine Barrett was an English composer of Edwardian musical comedy, best known for the hit show Florodora (1899) and many popular songs.
Sir Charles Santley was an English opera and oratorio singer with a bravura technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era. His has been called 'the longest, most distinguished and most versatile vocal career which history records.'
Walter Brandon Thomas was an English actor, playwright and songwriter, best known as the author of the farce Charley's Aunt.
Sir Julius Benedict was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.
Albert Chevalier ;, was an English music hall comedian, singer and musical theatre actor. He specialised in cockney related humour based on life as a costermonger in London during the Victorian era. Owing to this and his ability to write songs, he became known to his audiences as the "costers' laureate".
Charles Penrose was an English music hall and theatre performer, and later radio comedian, who is best known for his unusual comic song "The Laughing Policeman". He was born in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, the son of a master watchmaker and jeweller.
Kate Josephine Bateman Crowe was an American actress. She started out as a child actor and later developed a career in romantic leading parts.
Harold Owen "Gary" Wilmot, MBE is a British singer, actor, comedian, presenter, writer and director who rose to fame as a contestant on New Faces. As a television presenter, he is best known as the host of You and Me, So You Want To Be Top and Showstoppers. His West End credits include Me and My Girl, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Prince of Egypt and Wicked.
Fred Terry was an English actor and theatrical manager. After establishing his reputation in London and in the provinces for a decade, he joined the company of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree where he remained for four years, meeting his future wife, Julia Neilson. With Neilson, he played in London and on tour for 27 further years, becoming famous in sword and cape roles, such as the title role in The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Alfred Glanville Vance, often known as The Great Vance, was an English music hall singer, regarded as "one of the most important of the early music-hall performers".
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born British composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works.
John Handford Ryley was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the comic baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, particularly in America. His second wife was D'Oyly Carte performer, actress and playwright Madeleine Lucette Ryley.
John Orlando Parry was an English actor, pianist, artist, comedian, songwriter and singer.
Cowell is an English language surname.
Mary Emma Ebsworth was an English dramatist.
Jane Elizabeth Vezin was a British actress.
Frederick Federici was an Italian-born British opera singer known for his work in the bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas written by Gilbert and Sullivan. He is also remembered as a reputed theatre ghost in Australia.
Joseph Leathley Cowell, born Joseph Leathley Hawkins-Witshed, was an English actor, author, and painter.
Henry Phillips (1801–1876) was an English singer, who took on operatic roles in the 1820s and 1830s.
American composer Henry Cowell wrote one of his first surviving piano pieces, Dynamic Motion, in 1916. It is known as one of the first pieces in the history of music to utilize violent tone clusters for the keyboard. It requires the performer to use various limbs to play massive secundal chords, and calls for keys to be held down without sounding to extend its dissonant cluster overtones via sympathetic resonance. Some of the clusters outlined in this piece are those written for fists, palms, and forearms. The piece is also noted for its extended use of tuplets, featuring triplets, quintuplets, and sextuplets in the melody line.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
