Joseph Jefferson
(1842-1932)

"In many important respects it more nearly approaches positive perfection than any single piece of acting now before the public." Times, a year later

He had little schooling and after his father died, when Joseph was thirteen, he toured the theatrical backwater with his actress mother. Within a few years he was playing major roles, in support to some of the greatest actors of the day, including Marrall to the Sir Giles Overreach of Junius Brutus Booth.

In 1853, he became stage manager of the Baltimore Museum, and a year later was hired by John T. Ford to manage a theatre in Richmond, VA. There he played with Edwin Forrest and other noted performers.

The turning point n his career came after his return in 1857 from a visit to London, when he was hired by Laura Keene as a member of her company. Under her aegis he scored notable successes as Dr. Pangloss in The Heir-at-Law and as Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin. Moving to the Winter Garden, he consolidated his reputation when he played Caleb Plummer in Dot, Dion Boucicault’s dramatization of The Cricket on the Hearth, and Salem Scudder in Boucicault’s The Octoroon.

In 1859 he produced his own version of Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, but it was unsuccessful. During a second trip to London he prevailed on Boucicault to give him a revised version. He played the new four-act adaptation with great success in London in 1865 for 170 nights in a row, and a year later in New York. The performance brought him fame and fortune, and for many years he played nothing else. A morality play, the story involves a man who drinks himself into a magical 20 year sleep and wakes to find that he has slumbered through the Revolutionary War. He is recognized neither by his wife nor his daughter in the changed world. The play end with Rip promising to stay sober and his wife Gretchen, promising she will be a better spouse. Not all the critics were pleased at first, but within a year his performances had been so refined and honed that even the Times. Which had been among the dissenters, were brought around.

In 1880 he produced his version of The Rivals, playing Bob Acres to the Mrs. Malaprop of Mrs. John Drew. While some critics condemned his rewriting of William Brinsely Sheridan, his performance was universally hailed and added one final portrait to his theatrical canon.

In 1893 he succeeded his friend Edwin Booth, as president of the Players. He made his last appearance, as Caleb Plummer, in 1904, ending a stage career of 71 years.

Jefferson was a man of slightly over average height. With a noticeably smallish head and long brown hair. Evan as a relatively young man his quizzical face was wizened. He had a prominent nose and chin, and described himself as presenting "a classical contour, neither Greek nor Roman, but of the pure Nut-cracker type. His beguiling Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson (1890) is filled with superb pictures of the theatre of his day and remains one of the landmarks in American theatrical writing.

"Rip Van Winkle"

(To listen to Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, clip on the gramophone)

A scene from "Rip Van Winkle", in the mountains, by Joseph Jefferson.

"Hey, Nada, Nada.
What’s the matter with that dog?
Look at him there, he goes head over heels down the hill.
Something must scare that dog.
Aye, you pug!
Something must’ve scared him.
I never saw him do anything like that before. Huh.
Well, he’ll find me again.

Well, here I was in the mountain.
Another night, hey.
These old trees begin to know me I reckon.
How are you old fellows?
Well, I like ‘em.
I like them trees, they keep you from the wind and the rain.
‘Cause they never froze me up.
When I laid me down falled on the flat of my back, I think they bowed their heads to me and said: "Go to sleep, Rip, go to sleep."

Ah, there’s a flash of lightening.
Old Hendrik Hudson is a lightening his pipe in the mountains tonight.
Now we hear him roll the big balls along the hill.
There they goes.
I was mighty on the other side of that old fella.
Now, I don’t believe in him.
I hear the old women say that whenever there’s a storm in the mountain, old Hendrik Hudson and his crew are playing ten-pin along the mountain tops.
Rolling the balls along in the valley.
Ha, ha, I don’t believe it.