Sir John Hare (16 May 1844 – 28 December 1921), born John Joseph Fairs, was an English actor and theatre manager of the later 19th– and early 20th centuries.
Born and brought up in London, with frequent visits to the West End, Hare had a passion for the theatre from his childhood. After acting as an amateur as a young man he joined a professional company in Liverpool, before making his London debut in 1865 at the age of 21 with Marie Wilton's company. Wilton was a pioneer of naturalistic theatre, with which Hare was greatly in sympathy, and he quickly gained a reputation in character roles, particularly in comedies.
Within a decade Hare was well enough established to go into management. He was in partnership with the actor W. H. Kendal at the Court Theatre from 1875 to 1879, and from 1879 to 1888 at the St James's Theatre with Kendal and the latter's wife, Madge. They presented, mostly successfully, a succession of new British plays, adaptations of French works, and revivals. At the Garrick Theatre from 1888 to 1895 Hare had a solo managerial career, after which he concentrated on acting – in the US, on tour in the British provinces, and in the West End. Among the playwrights with whom Hare was closely associated were T. W. Robertson, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Wing Pinero.
Hare was admired for his carefully observed characterisations, his comedic flair and his handsomely-mounted productions. He was knighted in 1907, and died in London in 1921 at the age of 77, four years after his last stage appearance.
Life and career Early years: 1844–1865
Hare was born and raised in London, the son of Jane Postumous née Armstrong (1801–1858) and Thomas Fairs (1796–1848), a London architect.John Joseph Fairs (1844), England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837–1915, St George's, Hanover Square, Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 November 2019. ; John Joseph Fairs, 1851 England Census, Middlesex, St George, Hanover Square, Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 November 2019 ; John Fairs (Comedian), London, Hampstead St John, Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 November 2019 ; and John Hare (Theatrical Manager), 1891 England Census, London, St Marylebone, All Souls, District 14, Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 November 2019 As a teenager he used to play truant to go to West End theatres to see the stars of the day, such as Charles Kean, Frederick Robson, Charles Mathews and J. B. Buckstone. After his parents died Hare was sent by his uncle, his legal guardian, to Giggleswick School, and he was studying for the civil service examination when he was invited to take part in some amateur theatricals. Propelled at the last minute from a small role to the leading part he found his passion for the theatre rekindled.Pemberton, pp. 16–17 After playing in two further amateur productions – as Beauseant in a burlesque on The Lady of Lyons, and Box in Box and Cox – he determined to go on the stage. His tutor at Giggleswick recognised that Hare was not cut out for the civil service, and at his urging Hare's uncle agreed to let the young man pursue a stage career.Pemberton, p. 18
Returning to London, Hare studied under the prominent actor Leigh Murray. In September 1864 Murray arranged for Hare to join the company at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool. Hare's first professional appearance was as Smallpiece in John Oxenford's play, A Woman of Business. Among the company were J. L. Toole (a guest star), Squire Bancroft, Lionel Brough and William Blakeley, with all of whom Hare was quickly on friendly terms.Pemberton, pp. 20–21 After Toole the company had another visiting star, E. A. Sothern, who encouraged the young actor and insisted that he should be cast in a leading comic role in Watts Phillips's new comedy The Woman in Mauve, which Sothern premiered at the theatre in December 1864."Prince of Wales Theatre", Liverpool Mercury, 19 December 1864, p. 1
On 12 August 1865 Hare (still known by his original surname, Fairs) married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Adela Elizabeth Holmes (1845–1931), daughter of John Hare Holmes, whose middle name Hare borrowed for his stage name. The marriage lasted more than fifty years; the couple had one son, Gilbert, who became a successful actor and manager, and two daughters, one of whom, Effie, married Bancroft's son George. As a newly married man Hare seriously considered leaving the stage in favour of more secure employment in the civil service; nevertheless he wrote to the actress and manager Marie Wilton, seeking to join a new company that she was setting up at the old Prince of Wales's Theatre in London. He was accepted, and his theatrical career in the West End began.
The Prince of Wales's and The Court: 1865–1879 Hare made his London debut in September 1865, playing Short, the landlord, in Naval Engagements, an old comedy by Charles Dance, given as a curtain raiser to H. J. Byron's extravaganza Lucia di Lammermoor.Pemberton, p. 29; and "The London Theatres", The Era, 8 October 1865, p. 11 Two months later Hare came to wide public and critical attention for his performance in T. W. Robertson's comedy Society. The Times later commented: [Hare] bounded into fame more quickly, perhaps, than any actor of our time. On the eventful evening of November 1, 1865 – momentous to the English stage no less than to Hare – Tom Robertson's Society was produced, with Hare cast for the small part of Lord Ptarmigant. All the reforms in English acting which the Prince of Wales's Theatre was to achieve could be seen in little in Hare's Lord Ptarmigant: the close attention to detail, the propriety and verisimilitude, the minute finish which the small size of the theatre and stage permitted and which brought the best of English acting for a time on to the same level as the French – Lord Ptarmigant had little to do but to go to sleep, but he did it so well that the small part was one of the hits of the production. The theatre writer J. P. Wearing comments, "Even though Ptarmigant was a small role, Hare's thorough attention to detail reformed the way in which old male characters were recreated on stage".
For the next nine years Hare remained a member of the Prince of Wales's company, appearing in a succession of Robertson's comedies and in other plays produced at the theatre. Among his parts were Prince Perovsky (Ours, Robertson, 1866), Sam Gerridge (Caste, Robertson, 1867), Bruce Fanquehere (Play, Robertson, 1868), Beau Farintosh (School, Robertson, 1869), Dunscombe Dunscombe (M. P., Robertson, 1870), Sir John Vesey (Money, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1872), and Sir Patrick Lundie (adaptation of Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins, 1873). He also appeared in curtain raisers such as Box and Cox, in which, having played Box in his amateur days, he now played Cox. His last part at the Prince of Wales's was in 1874: Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal to the Lady Teazle of Mrs Bancroft, with Bancroft and Charles Coghlan as the Surface brothers. He was praised for rescuing his role from the low comedy treatment it had long suffered, but some thought his portrayal erred in the opposite direction and was too serious."Prince of Wales's Theatre", The Standard, 6 April 1874, p. 2; "Prince of Wales Theatre", The Morning Post, 6 April 1874, p. 6; "The Prince of Wales's Theatre", The Pall Mall Gazette, 14 April 1874, pp. 11–12; and "The School for Scandal", The Era, 26 July 1874, p. 11
During this time, in 1869, Hare founded The Lambs of London as a social club for actors; he was voted its first Shepherd (in London) and, "with much truth and humour, was labelled 'The Despot.Hardee, p. 21"Hare, John", The Lambs, accessed 20 December 2021 He left the Prince of Wales's company in October 1874, when he was unable to master a leading role written for him in Sweethearts by W. S. Gilbert. The author was a close friend and wished to make use both of Hare's naturally boyish appearance and of his talent for impersonating elderly men, contrasting the character in youth in the first act and old age in the second. In rehearsal, Hare struggled with playing the young romantic lead, and eventually, despite Gilbert's advice, he negotiated terms for leaving the company, and Coghlan took over his role.Stedman, pp. 125–126
For some time Hare had planned to go into theatre management, and he secured the Court Theatre with W. H. Kendal as his silent partner. Kendal's wife, Madge, played the title role in Hare's first production, Coghlan's Lady Flora, on 18 March 1875, with her husband and Hare in the other leading roles. The production and acting were well received, but though the play was praised by The Era, other papers thought little of it."Court Theatre", The Era, 14 March 1875, p. 4; "Court Theatre", The Observer, 14 March 1875, p. 2; "Court Theatre", The Morning Post, 15 March 1875. p. 3; and "Theatres", The Graphic, 20 March 1875, p. 279 Hare hoped to continue the tradition of Robertson by fostering new English comedies, but he found that original works by Coghlan and Gilbert were less successful than Coghlan's English version of a French play, A Quiet Rubber, which opened on 8 January 1876, giving Hare one of his greatest successes. In the same year he also did good business with A Scrap of Paper, Palgrave Simpson's adaptation of a French comedy,Morley, p. 205 and a revival of an older English comedy, New Men and Old Acres.
As a manager Hare was known for his insistence on having plays attractively staged, well cast and performed exactly as he wanted. Occasionally he could be, in Wearing's phrase, "strict and peppery, and even sarcastic" at rehearsals, and Madge Kendal recounted a comically ferocious battle of wills between Hare and the equally intransigent Gilbert at a rehearsal of the latter's Broken Hearts in 1875.Kendal, p. 174 Hare did not appear in all his own productions; he was not in the cast of Broken Hearts, although one part was evidently written with him in mind;Pemberton, pp. 53–54 in one of the greatest successes of his management, Olivia (1878), W. G. Wills's adaptation of The Vicar of Wakefield, he chose not to play the vicar but cast William Terris to co-star with Ellen Terry. His management of the Court ended when his lease expired in 1879. His last presentation there was on 19 July of that year with Robertson's The Ladies' Battle, an adaptation of a French play.
St James's Theatre: 1879–1888 Since its inception in 1835 the St James's, in an unfashionable part of the West End, had acquired a reputation as an unlucky theatre, and more money had been lost than made by successive managements. At the invitation of Lord Newry, the owner of the freehold of the theatre, Hare and the Kendals jointly took over the management of the house in 1879.Duncan, pp. 176 and 184 For the first time, the theatre's reputation was steadily defied. The new lessees aimed both to amuse and to improve public taste,"The Hare and Kendal Management at the St James's", The Theatre, September 1888, pp. 134–145 and in Wearing's view they achieved their aim.Wearing, J. P. "Hare, Sir John (real name John Joseph Fairs) (1844–1921), actor and theatre manager", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 10 February 2019 Under their management the St James's staged twenty-one plays: seven were new British pieces, eight adaptations of French plays, and the rest were revivals.