Thomas Abthorpe Cooper (born
London, England
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...
, 1776; d.
Bristol, Pennsylvania
Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware River. It antedates Philadelphia, being settled in 1681 and first incorpora ...
, 4 April 1841) was an English
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...
.
Cooper was born in
Harrow on the Hill
Harrow on the Hill is a locality and historic village in the borough of Harrow in Greater London, England. The name refers to Harrow Hill, ,Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) and is located some half a mile south of the mod ...
, London, the son of a physician with the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
. He received a good education, and, on the death of his father, was adopted by
Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft (10 December 174523 March 1809) was an English dramatist, miscellanist, poet and translator. He was sympathetic to the early ideas of the French Revolution and helped Thomas Paine to publish the first part of ''The Rights of Ma ...
and
William Godwin.
His first appearance on the stage was with
Stephen Kemble
George Stephen Kemble (21 April 1758 – 5 June 1822) was a successful English theatre manager, actor, and writer, and a member of the famous Kemble family. He was described as "the best Sir John Falstaff which the British stage ever saw" thoug ...
's company in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
, and later he acted at
Covent Garden, London, with great success as
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
and
Macbeth. In December, 1796, he made his first appearance in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
as Macbeth at the
Chestnut Street Theatre, and in August of the following year played in the
Greenwich Street Theatre
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, New York, as Pierre in ''Venice Preserved''. He returned to England in 1802, and for several years held a foremost rank on the English stage.
In 1804, he returned to New York and soon afterward, for a long time, became lessee of the
Park Theatre. Later he again visited England, but soon returned to the United States, where he continued to play until advanced in years. As his daughter,
Priscilla
Priscilla is an English female given name adopted from Latin ''Prisca'', derived from ''priscus''. One suggestion is that it is intended to bestow long life on the bearer.
The name first appears in the New Testament of Christianity variously as ...
, married Robert Tyler, eldest son of President
John Tyler
John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president in 1841. He was elected vice president on the 1840 Whig tick ...
, he held various public offices, among which were that of military storekeeper in
Frankford, Pennsylvania, during 1841, and later the office of surveyor to the ports of New York and Philadelphia. Cooper had great natural endowments of person and voice, but did not excel as a student. His acting was of the school of
John Philip Kemble
John Philip Kemble (1 February 1757 – 26 February 1823) was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him o ...
, whom he bid fair to rival in his early days.
Notes
References
*
1776 births
1849 deaths
American male stage actors
English male stage actors
English people of Irish descent
English emigrants to the United States
{{US-stage-actor-stub