Augustin Daly

Life
John Augustin Daly [An American theatrical entrepreneur and master of burlesque who operated in New York and London and produced Wilde’s plays; he was also the author of Leah, the Forsaken (1862), adapted from German - a successful play which Leopold Bloom’s father saw with Miss Kate Bateman in the title-role, and which comes to town in Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), with Mrs. Bandmann-Palmer in the lead; his only original play was Under the Gaslight in which the hero is tied to a railway track with suitable theatrical effects; Ada Rehan was his best female actress and was unsuccessfully sought by Oscar Wilde for Daly’s production of Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s DFan in London; Daly founded Daly’s Theatre in New York in 1879 and expanded his operations to London in 1893 in a premisses which later became a leading London cinema; he died in Paris on a trip to Europe in 1899.

(See Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey and the Popular Irish Theater, 1991 - who counts him as possibly Irish in origin, though he is elsewhere placed in Norfolk [Virginia, USA] with a working-class background before his earliest theatrical ventures with his brother Joseph at Avon, then moving to New York. See various theatrical websites and blogs.)

[ top ]

Notes
William Winter (1836-1917), the Greenwich Village author and critic, was a Pfaffian [or Pfaff Bohemian] and supporter of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. At the date of Wilde’s conviction for gross indecency he wrote to Augustin Daly, the American-born theatrical entrepreneur. (Cited in Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1996, p.245.) Winter had written a book about Ada Rehan - born Ada Crehan but accidentally billed as Ada C. Rehan in New York. She Born on Shannon St. in Limerick], she became Daly’s chief female lead for 20 years - doing particularly well on Shakespearean roles - and even had a ship named after her. E. A. Fitzsimons writes—

In September 1891, when Wilde was assembling his cast for the first production of Lady Windermere’s Fan, he wrote to Daly requesting that he consider the part of Mrs. Erlynne for Rehan, insisting: ‘I would sooner see her play the part of Mrs. Erlynne than any English-speaking actress we have, or French actress for that matter [...]Ղ - but Daly turned him down.

[...]
In 1897, after Wilde was released from prison, Daly offered him an advance to write a new play for Rehan, but negotations faltered and Daly died in Paris on 7 June 1899. For Rehan this was as much a personal tragedy as a professional one and she was touched by Wilde’s kindness at this very difficult time, remembering: “Oscar Wilde came to me and was more good and helpful than I can tell you – just like a very kind brother…I shall always think of him as he was to me through those few dreadful days”.
 
Wilde assured Rehan that he would have her play finished by 1 June, but he soon realised that this deadline was wildly optimistic. Although he offered to return her advance, which was long gone by then, he asked that she give some time to raise it. Rehan was disappointed but agreed to the delay. Perhaps inevitably, Wilde never managed to return her money and he was dead before the year was out.
(See E. A. Fitzsimons - Wordpress blog [accessed 12.07.2023].
[Note: There is a life of Ada Rehan in the Dictionary of Irish Biography which gives her original name as Bridget Crehan, daughter of an adventurer in prision for smuggling and the daughter of the jail matron. Her early apprenticeship (aged 15) and versatility in different roles placed her plays by Dion Boucicault - produced by Daly - and also as Katherine in Shakespeare"s Taming of the Shrew (Daly"s Gaiety Theatre, London; May 1888), her most successful role. Her style of acting fell from favour but she lived on comfortably on investments and died in New York in 1916. (Paraphrase; see the entry by James MacKillop in the RIA Dictionary of Irish Biography - online; [accessed 12.07.2023].
 

[ top ]