Charles Hawtrey was a very old friend. We knew him first at his father's well-known preparatory school for Eton, where I sent my son. The next phase came soon afterwards, when he confided to us his wish to go upon the stage; a wish my wife and I at once encouraged. This appeared a little before we commenced our Haymarket career with a revival of Lord Lytton's comedy, Money. We said he could appear as a young member in the club scene, with a few lines to speak. Hawtrey enthusiastically accepted the offer. Unfortunately, an illness prevented its fulfilment, or he would have been the companion of Fred Terry in making his first appearance on that eventful evening.
Our paths in life, both on and off the stage, were much asunder, but we were always the best of friends, and I remember with pleasure a strong wish he expressed, during one of our meetings at Marienbad, when a scheme was on foot to build a theatre for him in the Haymarket, that he might christen it "The Bancroft." My wife and I were sorry when the scheme fell through.
He leaves the happiest memories to his shoals of friends—from the early days, of The Private Secretary; the middle stage, of Lord and Lady Algy and The Man from Blankley's; to end, with the gay maturity of Ambrose Applejohn's Adventure,—and laughter all the way.
Charles Hawtrey was the actor I have alluded to who had the widest knowledge of the Bible of any layman I have known.
John Hare
My intimate and affectionate relations, both private and professional, with John Hare make me a little shy of writing about him with the warmth his long and brilliant career upon the stage deserves. I was his oldest professional friend, having been a member of the company he first joined. In the following year my wife offered him an engagement, and for ten years he was prominent among the attractive company of the old Prince of Wales's Theatre. No young actor was, perhaps, so fortunate as himself, appearing as he did in three such successive and distinctive character parts as Lord Ptarmigant, the sleepy old Peer in Society, Prince Perovsky, the courtly Russian diplomat in Ours, and Sam Gerridge, the humble gasfitter in Caste. The delicacy and finish of Hare's acting was of great service to the Robertson comedies, in all of which he appeared.
When he left us it was to enter into friendly managerial rivalry. I applauded the step as a wise one on his part; but, after so many years of close intimacy, I felt the wrench. From that moment the dressing-room he and I had shared knew me no more, and I found a lonely corner on another floor.
And a friendly rivalry it was. If we had our Diplomacy, he had his Olivia, a delightful play, in which Ellen Terry made so conspicuous a success and Terriss laid the firm foundation of his fine career. My sole disappointment in connection with this beautiful production was that Hare had not plucked up the courage to attack the part of the dear old Vicar himself.
It is not for me to dwell upon his career, which was always to the credit of his calling, or enumerate his successes, only naming Pinero's brilliant works, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith and The Gay Lord Quex. In the first of them Mrs. Patrick Campbell clinched her previous triumph; in the second Irene Vanbrugh seized the opportunity of rushing to the front, where she has remained ever since.
On an occasion when Hare proposed my health in distinguished company, it was pleasant to listen to words which were too flattering to allow of their repetition.