Klein, Charles

(1867-1915)

   Born in London, the playwright came to America in 1882 and acted juvenile roles before turning to playwriting. His first play to get a New York Times review was By Proxy (1892), a clever but somewhat tedious farce. Willie (1894) was panned, but The District Attorney, coauthored with Harrison Grey Fiske (1895), starred Wilton Lackaye and Effie Shannon. By 1897, Klein was regarded as "a rising playwright who seems to have plenty of ideas" (New York Times, 20 April 1897) when Heartsease and Dr. Belgraff both opened early that year. His best plays were produced by David Belasco and starred David Warfield: The Auctioneer (1901, revived 1913) and the phenomenally popular The Music Master (1904). Other successes included The Lion and the Mouse (1905), The Daughters of Men (1906), The Third Degree (1909), and The Gamblers (1910). Klein was also a play reader for Charles Frohman, and both died when the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine.