Everybody knows Lester Wallack, and yet it is really strange how few know really anythin’ about him. The facts in his career are familiar to not one man in a hundred. Some of these facts are quite curious, and quite different from what one would imagine.
A great many people, for example, think that Lester Wallack is an Englishman by birth. He has rather favored this idea himself, and is certainly an Englishman by adoption. But the truth is that Lester Wallack was born in New York, in the very heart of the city of New York, and in a street that has never been fashionable, and is now quite unfashionable, almost plebeian, Varick street. His father, as all the world is aware, was English, but his mother was Irish, bein’ Miss Johnstone, the actress, the daughter of a famous Irish comedian. Consequently at the very most Lester Wallach is only one-third English.
Above: Lester Wallack’s parents, James R. Wallack and Georgiana Johnstone
Another mistaken notion about Lester Wallack is that he used to be in the English army. I have heard people tell all sorts of stories about his adventures as a soldier, but they are all “ghost” stories, out of the “Arabian Nights.” The facts are that Lester Wallack was sent to England to be educated, as neither Yale, Harvard nor Columbia were thought good enough for him, and after gettin’ a little smatterin’ of learnin’ his father purchased an ensign’s commission for him in the English army. But he never served in the Army outside of London, exceptin’ on the stage in “Ours.” His regiment was ordered off to the wars, and he was himself perfectly ready, nay, I have been told anxious, to go with it, but the elder Wallack wouldn’t allow it, and absolutely forced his son to resign from the army the moment fightin’ began.
But Lester Wallack’s elder brother, who had also a commission purchased for him, did go to the war, and for nearly half a century Lester Wallack has reaped all the glory of his big brother’s achievement.
Twenty years ago a “gag” was started that Lester Wallack had been in prison, and it was true–this way: This big brother of his had been, in reward for his services, made the superintendent of Holloway Prison. Of course he resided within the prison limits, although in very comfortable quarters, and when visitin’ London Lester used to take pot luck at his big brother’s rooms. So it can truthfully be said that Lester Wallack has passed many a night in prison.
Another fact not generally known about Lester Wallack’s career–and a curious fact it is–is that Lester Wallack has always been, as an actor and a dramatist, a failure in England. Spite of his unconcealed admiration and imitation of that country, that country has gone back on him.
True it was his misfortune, not his fault, but the fact was all the same, though.
Lester made arrangements with Buckstone, of the Haymarket, to appear as a light comedian in one of his pet star parts. But somehow or other it was so fixed that he didn’t “come on” till late in the evenin’, when most of the critics had left the theatre. So very little was said about him and his engagement was canceled at his own request.
That wound him up in London as an actor. Then he tried his luck again in the great city as a dramatist. In this capacity he was once more a London failure. He produced his own play, “Rosedale,” at the Haymarket, under the title of “A Wild Goose Chase” (a name suggested by Dion Boucicault, who has ever been a chum of Lester Wallack’s) and engaged Sothern to play his own part in it. But, spite of Wallack, Boucicault and Sothern, the play was “damned.”
In fact, the only success Lester Wallack ever had in England was matrimonial. He got an English wife, and he had to run off with her at that. He eloped with the sister of Millais, the celebrated English painter.
A fondness for “h’Old h’England” has been one of Lester’s weaknesses, but his career in America has more than made up for his failure in England.
The American career of Lester Wallack has been one of which himself and his country can well be proud. Alike as man, gentleman, business man, actor and manager, Lester Wallack has been a credit to New York, which has returned the compliment and made him its favorite.
He began his New York career as an actor in a very brave way. His father was then very popular as an actor among Broadway audiences, but Lester wouldn’t take advantage of his father’s popularity. He dropped the word Wallack in the play bills, and was for years known only as John Lester, and as John Lester became quite an attraction at the old Bowery, which then numbered among its performers some of the finest actors who have ever lived.
Finally, when the elder Wallack opened a theatre of his own, takin’ Brougham’s old Lyceum and christenin’ it “Wallack’s,” the father was very glad to get a chance to engage his own son as a leadin’ actor at a big salary, and from that time on Lester Wallack has always been a power at Wallack’s.
And in all his money dealin’s with dramatic people Mr. Lester Wallack has been alike the model of honesty and the soul of hono. He has never cheated an actor or an author out of a dollar; never taken the slightest personal, professional or pecuniary advantage of ‘em.
Mr. Edmund Pillet, a newspaper man and dramatist, once at Mr. Wallack’s request, gave him the first chance at the manuscript of a play by a French author, then much in demand. Through Mr. Wallack’s other engagements he was not able to attend to the matter of the play promptly, and Mr. Pillet lost his chance to dispose of the play elsewhere. When Mr. Wallack heard of this he sent for Mr. Pillet and not only tendered an explanation and an apology, but a check for a considerable amount, to repay Mr. Pillet for the loss of his chances; and, as the phrase is, “many similar instances could be cited.”
At one time there was a sort of half partnership, half rivalry between George Jordan and Lester Wallack, just as there was afterwards between Montague and Rignold, about bein’ the handsomest actors and the ladies’ pets. As a rule the men of the day preferred George Jordan, but the ladies then, as now, went in for Lester Wallack.
He was always vain of his looks, and was as particular about his toilet as a woman. Just as George Clarke some years ago refused to part with his mustache, when a member of Daly’s company, so Lester Wallack refused to shave off his side whiskers to play Charles Surface, although side whiskers were not worn in the times of “The School for Scandal.”
Altogether, Lester Wallack has had a dozen good reasons for thinkin’ this life worth livin’, and has been probably the luckiest theatrical man who ever lived. But as most men are vainest on their weakest points, he has been always tryin’ to toady to England, in which he has always been a failure, and depreciatin’ America, in which he has always been a success.
[Editor’s notes: Lester’s father, James, is noted in documents variously as “James Richard” or “James William” Wallack.
Lester’s brother, Capt. Henry Jobling Wallack, was Deputy Governor of the Millbank Prison, not Holloway. Millbank held convicts slated for removal to Australia.]
