Lewis Waller

William Waller Lewis (3 November 1860 – 1 November 1915), known on stage as Lewis Waller, was an English actor and theatre manager, well known on the London stage and in the English provinces.

After early stage experience with J. L. Toole's and Helena Modjeska's companies from 1883, Waller became known, by the late 1880s, for romantic leads, both in Shakespeare and in popular costume dramas of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He attracted a large number of female admirers, who formed themselves into a vocal and conspicuous fan club. He also tried his hand at management of tours in 1885 and 1893 and then became an actor-manager at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in the mid-1890s. After the turn of the century, he returned to management, and remained an actor-manager for the rest of his career, both in London and on tour.

Despite his commercial success in such parts as the title roles in Booth Tarkington's Monsieur Beaucaire and Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard, Waller greatly preferred acting in Shakespeare, in which his roles ranged from Romeo to Othello. Among the roles he created was Sir Robert Chiltern in Oscar Wilde's 1895 comedy An Ideal Husband.

Waller was born in Bilbao, Spain, the eldest son of an English civil engineer, William James Lewis, and his wife, Carlotta née Vyse. He was educated at King's College School in south west London, after which, intending to pursue a commercial career, he studied languages on the continent. From 1879 to 1883 he was a clerk in a London firm owned by his uncle.

After acting in amateur performances, Waller decided to make a career on the stage and was engaged by J. L. Toole in 1883. His first role was the Hon. Claude Lorrimer in H. J. Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling, in which he was billed as "Waller Lewis". By May of the same year, he had adopted the stage name Lewis Waller. In that month he appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in a charity matinee for the Actors' Benevolent Fund with Toole's company and such contemporary stars as Rutland Barrington, Lionel Brough, Arthur Cecil, Nellie Farren, George Grossmith, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. He remained in Toole's company for a year, playing light comedy and juvenile parts. During this year, he married a young actress, Florence West (1862–1912). He joined a touring company, playing the central role, the blind Gilbert Vaughan, in Called Back by Hugh Conway, dramatised by J. Comyns Carr. He returned to London in March 1885 to play at the Lyceum Theatre in Helena Modjeska's company, as the Abbé in Adrienne Lecouvreur, and then toured with her, playing such roles as Mortimer in Mary Stuart and Orlando in As You Like It;The Manchester Guardian said of the latter that he "kept Orlando properly ingenuous, and made him a taking and gallant young wooer."

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