Fred Terry

Fred Terry (9 November 1863 – 17 April 1933) 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 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.

Terry was born in London into a theatrical family. His parents, Benjamin (1818–1896) of Irish descent, and Sarah (née Ballard) (1819–1892), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth (where Sarah's father was a Wesleyan minister) and had eleven children of which Fred was the youngest son. At least five of these became actors: Kate, Ellen, Marion, Florence and Fred. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theatre management.

Terry's sister Kate was a very successful actress until her marriage and retirement from the stage in 1867, and his sister Ellen became the greatest Shakespearean actress of her time. His great nephew (Kate's grandson), John Gielgud, became one of the twentieth century's most respected actors. Terry was educated in London, France and Switzerland.

During his career, Terry toured extensively, playing in all the principal cities of the United Kingdom and North America. His first stage appearance was at the Haymarket Theatre in 1880 at the age of 16, in a revival of Bulwer-Lytton's Money, with the Bancrofts. After appearances on tour, he was engaged at the Lyceum Theatre in 1884 in Henry Irving's production of Twelfth Night, as Sebastian to the Viola of his sister Ellen. In her memoirs, his sister Ellen wrote, "I don't think that I have ever seen any success so unmistakable and instantaneous." He then returned to touring, in Britain and the U.S. Back in London by the summer of 1887, he had a success at the Avenue Theatre, as Dr William Brown in Dr Bill, by Hamilton Aidé, in 1890. He joined the company of Herbert Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, appearing in numerous productions with the company from 1890 to 1894. His roles there included D'Aulnay in W. S. Gilbert's Comedy and Tragedy (1890) and John Christison in Henry Arthur Jones's The Dancing Girl (1891). In the cast of this last, he met Julia Neilson, daughter of Alexander Ritchie Neilson, whom he married later that year. For Tree, he also played Laertes in Hamlet and appeared in Sydney Grundy's translation of the French play A Village Priest, Beau Austin and Peril. Terry and Neilson's daughter Phyllis was born in 1892.

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