Born Today: J. B. Buckstone

1809-1879

British comic, actor and writer J. B. Buckstone (John Baldwin) was born on this day in London.  He was first sent to school at Walworth Grammar School and had a brief apprenticeship with the Navy at age 10, but promptly returned to school thereafter and eventually wound up studying the law.  He did for a time work for a solicitor but had turned to acting by the age of 19.  He joined a traveling troupe of actors in 1821 and toured for 3 years.  He found a mentor in the renown Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean; this helped facilitate his first appearance on the stage in London on 30 January 1823.  In 1824, he found his first success as an actor and also began to write plays himself during this year.  In 1826 one of his own plays debuted; and the following year he debuted at the famed Adelphi Theater; he remained there until 1833.  During this period of time, he wrote the bulk of his own plays, many of which were produced at the Adelphi.  As he gained more and more success with his acting career, time did not permit that he continue to write on a regular basis.  1833 saw him appear for the first time a the Haymarket Theater (Royal Theater), the venue for which he famous for to this day owed to the general acceptance that he haunts the place.  Several of his plays dating from his most prolific writing period became big hits at the theater, and he would go to to become the manager.  After moving around quite a bit in the 1840's--including a return to the Adelphi and a not so successful try of fame in the U.S., Buckstone returned to the Haymarket 1848.  By 1856 he was the theater's lessee and continued on in this until 1877.  He did still carry on writing small plays and farces for production at the theater--all of which had  a comic bent--all quite popular with audiences.  It was Buckstone who introduced the the 2PM matinee at the theater in 1873--an innovation that stuck.  Though he had known great success during his career, his health had begun to fail him; and, in fact, at the time of his death, he had been ill for a number years already.  By the mid 1870's his company began to break up; by 1877 he was bankrupt and had to relinquish the theater--an event that could only have added to his illness.  Buckstone died two years later from his ill-health on the 31st of October in 1879 (for those of us Halloween nuts, this is seemingly fitting!).  I can find no information as his burial, but he has long been reported as ghost that the Haymarket, with Sir Patrick Stewart seeing him in the wings during a recent production of Waiting For Godot.  Two of Buckstone's children also became actors and appeared in early films.  The reason for his inclusion here stems from two silent films that were produced using his plays as scenario material, both of which were UK products.  The first of these was a production of Jack Sheppard in 1912.  The second dates from 1921: Married Life was produced by Ideal.  To this date, these are the only two films that have ever been made using his writing as source material.  In all, during his period of writing, Buckstone wrote over 150 plays.

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