Joseph Jefferson

Jefferson as the young Rip Van Winkle

In 1833 at the age of four years, Jefferson was carried on stage at the Washington theatre in a bag by an actor named Thomas D. Rice. He put Jefferson alongside him in black face and dress with Rice performing his well-known character "Jim Crow" and little Joseph as Little Joe.[3] In 1837 now age eight, Joseph performed at the Franklin theatre in New York City with his parents as a pirate. After the end of the 1837-1838 season, his parents moved with Joseph, his brother Charles Burke, and his sister Cornelia to Chicago.[4] There they performed in the young city's first resident company, the Chicago Theater, at the rough-hewn Sauganash Hotel. Joseph sang comic songs, played bit parts, and performed the role of the Duke of York.[5]

His father died when he was 13, and young Jefferson continued acting and helping to support the family. Both Jefferson and Burke performed continuously, and the entire family toured in what was then considered the American West and South. Traveling theatre to theatre, Jefferson performed and worked everywhere in between Boston to Charleston as far as Chicago. The family led the lives of "Strolling Players", essentially itinerant actors.[6] At one point they followed the American army from 1846-1848 during the Mexican–American War.[2] Jefferson learned to perform in a variety of space, for instance in the dining rooms of country hotels, without any stage or scenery. He put together makeshift footlights by mounting tallow candles on a strip board nailed to the floor.[7] It was not until after he returned to New York in 1849 that Jefferson began to earn some critical success and more financial rewards.[8]

After this experience, partly as actor, partly as manager, he won his first pronounced success in 1858 as Asa Trenchard in Tom Taylor's Our American Cousin at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York. This play was the turning-point of his career, as it would be for the actor E. A. Sothern. Jefferson revealed a new spirit in comedy, at a time when actors were long used to a more artificial convention. He also portrayed pathos in the part.

Other early parts included Newman Noggs in Nicholas Nickleby, Caleb Plummer in Dot (an adaption of The Cricket on the Hearth), Dr. Pangloss in George Colman the Younger's The Heir at Law, Salem Scudder in The Octoroon, and Bob Acres in The Rivals. The actors created this part beyond what Sheridan appears to sketch.

Jefferson as the old Rip Van Winkle, 1896

In 1859, Jefferson made a dramatic adaptation of Washington Irving's story of "Rip Van Winkle", drawing from older plays. He acted it with success in Washington, D.C., with Sophie Gimber Kuhn playing the role of Lowenna.[9]

In 1861 due to his failing health and the death of his wife, he moved to San Francisco and then sailed to Australia.[10][11] He arrived at Sydney in the beginning of November 1861, and played a successful season. He performed in and produced Rip Van Winkle, Our American Cousin, The Octoroon, and other plays. He opened in Melbourne on March 31, 1862, and had a most successful season extending over about six months. He continued to act there and in Tasmania.

After spending four years in Australia, Jefferson sailed to London. There he met Dion Boucicault, who revised Rip Van Winkle, turning it into "a pronounced success and [it] ran for one hundred and seventy nights."[12] With opening night on September 5, 1865 at the Adelphi Theatre in London, Jefferson portrayed what would become one of the most celebrated characters of the 19th-century stage.[13]

Jefferson returned to America in August 1866. He continued acting in Rip Van Winkle for 40 years, creating no new character except for minor ones. He was known for this single character, and admired for his success in London and Australia. [14]

As John Maguire wrote in 1909, "It was then that America greeted the return of the wanderer, proud of the victory of an American actor in an American play in foreign lands. This fame added to the glory of his country, both at home and abroad…"[15] Returning to America, Jefferson made it his stock play, making annual tours of the states with it, and occasionally reviving The Heir at Law in which he played Dr. Pangloss, The Cricket on the Hearth (Caleb Plummer), and The Rivals (Bob Acres). He was one of the first to establish the traveling troupes who superseded the old system of local stock companies.

Jefferson also starred in a number of films as the Van Winkle character, starting in the 1896 Awakening of Rip. This is held in the U.S. National Film Registry. Jefferson's son Thomas followed in his father's footsteps and played the character in a number of early 20th-century silent films. Joseph Jefferson made several recordings, all of material from Rip Van Winkle.

Jefferson essentially created no new character after 1865, except for minor parts. He was known as a one-part actor. The public never wearied of his one masterpiece. Francis Wilson wrote in 1906, "He was Rip and Rip was he."[16] Jefferson was rewarded by the theater community with being elected lifetime president of The Players Club.[17]

In 1869 Jefferson bought a place called Orange Island in New Iberia, Louisiana. There he built a large home.[18] The site is on a peninsula on Lake Peigneur; the peninsula became known as Jefferson Island in his honor.[19]

Jefferson died from pneumonia on April 23, 1905 at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.[20]