Robson, Stuart

(1836-1903)

   Henry Robson Stuart was born in Annapolis, Maryland, and made his acting debut in the Baltimore Museum's 1852 parody Uncle Tom's Cabin as It Is. During the 1860s and 1870s, he appeared in the companies of Laura Keene, Mrs. John Drew, and William Warren before teaming with actor W. H. Crane in the farcical hit Our Boarding House (1877), after which they appeared together in a variety of comedies including Our Bachelors (1878), The Comedy of Errors (1878), Sharps and Flats (1880), and in Bronson Howard's The Henrietta (1887), which the playwright is purported to have written with Robson and Crane in mind. Robson's partnership with Crane ended amicably in 1889. Robson bought Crane's share in The Henrietta and continued to play Bertie. Augustus Pitou quoted Robson's wistful observation about his own talent: "I have the soul of a tragedian with the high squeaky voice of a low comedian" (105). He continued to act in their hits with other actors and appeared with success in an 1893 production of She Stoops to Conquer and, later, in new vehicles including The Meddler (1898), which he wrote himself, and Edward E. Rose's The Gadfly (1899) and Augustus Thomas's Oliver Goldsmith (1900). Critic Austin Latchaw described Robson (Kansas City Star, 14 May 1935) as "tall, slender, eccentric in bearing, squeaky in speech, with mannerisms so pronounced he could not have differentiated his roles very much no matter how he tried or how he dressed."