George Grossmith born 1847-1912

About:

George Grossmith was born in London, to a theatrical family. They were friendly with the Terrys and Sir Henry Irving and, after receiving some recognition for his amateur ‘penny readings’, Grossmith became a professional actor. Through his association with Arthur Sullivan and the theatre manger Richard D’Oyly Carte, he went on to create some of the greatest roles in the repertoire of Gilbert and Sullivan, including Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, Major General Stanley in Pirates of Penzance, the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe and Ko-Ko in The Mikado.

Despite suffering from stage fright and becoming addicted to morphine to combat it, the comic genius which characterised his literary work was also evident in his approach to performance. He was noted for his ability to ‘get laughs’, sometimes at the expense of the show as a whole. In one famous exchange with WS Gilbert, Grossmith defended a bit of stage business by claiming, ‘I get an enormous laugh by it’ to which Gilbert’s is supposed to have responded – ‘So you would if you sat on a pork pie’.

During his time with Gilbert and Sullivan, George began to write sketches and songs and, when he left their company, he performed much of his own work on tour in the UK and America. He was a man of prolific creativity and productivity - in total, he wrote 18 operettas, nearly 100 musical sketches, 600 songs and piano pieces, and three books. Towards the end of his touring life, he collaborated with his brother, Weedon on a series of entertaining sketches for Punch, some of which culminated in the publication of his most famous literary work, The Diary of a Nobody. He continued to make the occasional stage appearance until his retirement in 1900 and died in Folkestone, Kent in 1912.