Frank Harrison

(b. **/**/1864? - d. **/**/****). Actor. According to Stage & Cinema, Frank Harrison was an American actor who toured South Africa with the Frank Cellier company. However, Cellier had already arrived with Ethel Irving in December 1915 and F.D. Harrison only came out in May 1916. His first role with the London Gaiety Company was in To-night’s the Night, followed by The Girl in the Taxi, Mr. Manhattan, The Red Widow, Theodore & Co, The Country Girl, The Maid of the Mountains, Princess Caprice and So Long, Letty, all during 1916/1917. Other members of the company at the time were Grafton Williams and Thomas Pauncefort. During this period he also acted in the short film £20,000 (1916), directed by B.F. Clinton and co-starring Violet Dickens and Marie Ault. Previously he had appeared on the English stage in the epic production of Robespierre (1899) at the Lyceum Theatre in London, starring Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, as well as in various productions at the Theatre Royal in Leeds. In 1918 it was reported that he would be leaving for India to join the company of Maurice E. Bandman, his last performance in South Africa being in Dick Whittington and his Cat at the Pretoria Opera House. By November he was with the New Bandman Comedy Company in Egypt, but in 1919 he wrote from Alexandria that he had left Bandman and was building his own theatre, hoping to open early in July. Nevertheless, in February 1922 Variety reported from Chicago that Janet Merle (Janet King Lyle) and Frank Harrison would shortly launch a new vaudeville vehicle. (FO)

Sources

South African Pictorial

Le Roux, André I. & Fourie, Lilla – Filmverlede: geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse speelfilm

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