DREW, the name of a family of American actors. JOHN DREW (1827-1862) was
born in Dublin and made his first New York appearance in 1846. He played
Irish and light comedy parts with success in all the American cities,
and was manager of the Arch Street theatre in Philadelphia. He visited
England in 1855, and Australia in 1859, and died in Philadelphia. His
wife, LOUISE LANE DREW (1820-1897), was the daughter of a London actor,
and in 1827 went to America, appearing as the Duke of York to the elder
Booth's Richard III., and as Albert to Edwin Forrest's William Tell.
After this she starred as a child actress, and then as leading lady. She
had been twice married before she became Mrs Drew in 1850. From 1861 to
1892 she had the management of the Arch Street theatre in Philadelphia.
In 1880 she toured with Joseph Jefferson in his elaborate revival of
_The Rivals_, playing Mrs Malaprop to perfection. She had three
children, John, Sidney and Georgiana, wife of Maurice Barrymore
(1847-1905), and mother of Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, all actors. The
eldest son, JOHN DREW (b. 1853), began his stage career under his
mother's management in Philadelphia as Plumper in _Cool as a Cucumber_,
on the 22nd of March 1873; and after playing with Edwin Booth and
others, became leading man in Augustin Daly's company in 1879. His
association with this company, and with Ada Rehan as the leading lady,
constituted a brilliant period in recent stage history, his Petruchio
being only one, though perhaps the most striking, of a series of famous
impersonations. In 1892 he left Daly's company, and began a career as a
"star."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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