Herbert Flemming
Herbert Flemming (1855?-1908) was a well-known British-born actor and manager.
Contents
Biography
Also known as "Bertie Flemming", he started out as an actor in comedy and was said to have become one of the most popular actors on the British stage of his time, and in fact a matinee idol in London in the late 1880s.
He also toured the colonies, playing and working as a theatre and company manager in Australia and South Africa in the latter years of his life.
He went on to become a company and theatre manager of some renown in South Africa as well as Australia, inter alia working with Robert Brough (1857-1906). For example, the Brough-Flemming Comedy Company brought Beauty and the Barge (W.W. Jacobs and Louis N. Parker) from the Haymarket Theatre, London, to open at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne on 8th July, 1905 and was manager of the New English Comedy Company there in 1908.
Flemming died unexpectedly in Melbourne on 23 October, 1908, at the age of 53, leaving a widow and two children.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
Flemming arrived in South Africa in 1895 to make his debut as an actor in the country with the Luscombe Searelle company.
According to Boonzaier (1923), he went on to become a company and theatre manager of some renown in South Africa - sometimes in partnership, inter alia working with Robert Brough (1857-1906), .
Sources
Obituary in the Bendigo Advertiser, Saturday 24 October, 1908[1]
http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nb2003043649/
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 1932. (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. 402-408, 413.
Go to the ESAT Bibliography
Return to
Return to ESAT Personalities F
Return to South African Theatre Personalities
Return to The ESAT Entries
Return to Main Page
