Will Bernard
There are two persons known as Will Bernard associated with South African theatre, media and performance:
Contents
Will Bernard (1864–1915)
Will Bernard was a professional theatre performer and manager who visited South Africa in 1890, apparently billed as Will R. Bernard (according to D.C. Boonzaier, 1923). References to him in other sources refer to him as William H. Bernard and a 1903 photograph of him by the Australian photographic studio Talma and Co. (Melbourne and Sydney)[1] refers to him as "the stock actor William Bernard". Contextual evidence suggests these are probably all the same person.
Biography
According to the Wikipedia entry on his daughter, the silent film actress Dorothy Bernard (1890–1955)[2], he was born in Auckland, New Zealand and presumably started out as an actor in that country. He and his wife (Roy Elizabeth Ayrd) were in South Africa with the Chambers Theatre Company in 1890, their daughter being born in Port Elizabeth in that year.
Bernard subsequently moved to Portland, Oregon in the USA, where he worked as a stock company manager and was a well-respected actor, possibly for the Baker Theater Company[3] - where his daughter would begin her own career as a child actress under the stage name "Dot Bernard".
In 1905 the family moved to Los Angeles, California, and William accepted a position to act for and manage the Balasco theater. (His daughter subsequently entered the film industry and would ultimately appear in 87 films between 1908 and 1956.)
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
An actor listed as Will R. Bernard is mentioned by D.C. Boonzaier (1923) as a member of the Chambers Theatre Company in Cape Town in 1890, for which he was juvenile lead, playing heroic characters in plays such as The Bells of Haslemere and In the Ranks.
Will Bernard (19**-2010 )
He is a South African radio broadcaster.
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, directed by Jo Gevers for CAPAB 1969.
Passed away of cancer in Johannesburg on 30 July, 2010
Sources
Cape Times, 21 January 1969.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stock_actor_William_Bernard_(SAYRE_6949).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Stock_Company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Bernard
D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 390-391, .
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Return to Main Page Dorothy Bernard (June 25, 1890 – December 14, 1955) was an American actress of the silent era.
