# William Ingersoll (actor)

William Ingersoll (October 9, 1860 – May 5, 1936) was an American actor on stage, in musical theatre and in film. During a career spanning over five decades, he played more than 800 roles on stage. After performing in his first silent motion picture in 1920, he appeared in a handful of "talkies" in the 1930s, playing mainly character roles such as doctors, judges and a police commissioner.

## Early life

William Ingersoll was born in Lafayette, Indiana to a physician father, in a family that had never produced any actors; most of his relatives were shocked when, as a boy, he considered acting as a career, on the suggestion of his elder brother. He studied mining engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Denver after graduating from Purdue University, where he made such an impression in The Pirates of Penzance that friends urged him to become an actor.

## Career

Ingersoll joined the Boston Museum Company in 1882, where he remained for five years. In the beginning, he divided his time between acting and supporting the company as a backstage hand and general utility man, eventually making his first professional appearance as a fully fledged actor in 1885. He performed with Marie Wainwright in Twelfth Night at Palmer's Theatre in New York and went on tour with her for three seasons; she rated Ingersoll as "the best leading man on the American stage."
In 1894, Ingersoll joined the summer stock theatre company that James F. Neill and R.L. Giffen had organized at the Manhattan Beach, Denver. In September of the same year, he joined the first winter stock company that Neill and Giffen also organized at the Lyceum Theatre, Denver. When T. Daniel Frawley—who had placed another company in Salt Lake City in December 1894—later purchased the Neill-Giffen interests and moved the organization to San Francisco, Ingersoll remained on the roster of the combined Denver and Salt Lake City company.
Ingersoll then married and left the stage, but resumed his acting career after his wife's death. He first joined the Nat Goodwin Company, with whom he performed in In Mizzoura when it opened at the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco in June 1896; immediately after the play closed, the whole company sailed to Australia on June 25. Ingersoll remained with the Goodwin company for a period that included four seasons in Australia. In addition to performing with the Nat Goodwin company, Ingersoll played in the supporting companies of Mary Shaw, William H. Crane, Marie Cahill and Charles Richman.
He played leading parts at the Grand Opera House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He acted in many roles as a visiting star in Columbus, Cincinnati, at the Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado, and in Washington, D.C., Providence, Rhode Island, Richmond, Virginia, Salt Lake City, and on Broadway, among many others. He performed with stars of the period, such as Margaret Maher, Ethel Barrymore, Mrs. Fiske, and William DeWolf Hopper. In 1928–1929, he played in Brothers at the 48th Street Theatre in New York, learning his part perfectly in two days, one of the instances of his exceptional memory; this was the 821st he had learned.
After appearing on stage for 55 years and trying his hand in a silent film in 1920, he progressed into sound films in the 1930s, and one of his final talkies was Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), in which he played the role of the Doctor.

## Personal life

At the time of his death in 1936, Ingersoll was married to Mabel Tate, and they had a daughter, Mrs Ira Minnick.

## Memberships

Ingersoll was elected to The Lambs Theatre Club in 1893, and was also a member of The Players Club and of the council of the Actors' Equity Association.

## Selected works
### Stage

In the table below, all theatres are located in New York, NY, except where indicated.
| Title | Role | Theatre | Opening date | Closing date | # of perf. |
| In Mizzoura | (Unknown) | Baldwin Theatre, San Francisco | June ??, 1896 | June ??, 1896 | N/A |
| An American Citizen | Egerton Brown | Knickerbocker Theatre | October 11, 1897 | (Unknown) | N/A |
| Innocent as a Lamb | (Unknown) | Columbia Theater, Washington, D.C. | July 10, 1898 | (Unknown) | N/A |
| Nathan Hale | Guy Fitzroy | Knickerbocker Theatre | January 2, 1899 | (Unknown) | N/A |
| El Capitan | Scaramba | Lyric Theatre, London | July 10, 1899 | October 28, 1899 | 154 |
| El Capitan | Scaramba | Comedy Theatre, London | October 30, 1899 | December 9, 1899 | 154 |
| Peter Stuyvesant | (Unknown) | Wallack's Theatre | October 2, 1899 | October ??, 1899 | 28 |
| A Rich Man's Son | (Unknown) | Wallack's Theatre | October 21, 1899 | November 22, 1899 | 36 |
| Home Folks | (Unknown) | Olympia Theatre | December 26, 1904 | January 1, 1905 | 34 |
| Moonshine | Plunger Dawson | Liberty Theatre | October 30, 1905 | December 2, 1905 | 53 |
| Moonshine | Plunger Dawson | Majestic Theatre | December 25, 1905 | January 6, 1906 | 53 |
| Gallops | Charlie Galloway | Garrick Theatre | February 12, 1906 | April 1, 1906 | 81 |
| The Builders | Roger Grant | Astor Theatre | May 20, 1907 | June 1, 1907 | 16 |
| A Social Pirate | The Pirate | Orpheum Players | March 24, 1912 | March 31, 1912 | N/A |
| Tante | (Unknown) | Empire Theatre | October 28, 1913 | January 1, 1914 | 79 |
| So Much for So Much | (Unknown) | Longacre Theatre | December 2, 1914 | December 31, 1914 | 30 |
| Experience | Experience | Manhattan Opera House | January 22, 1918 | February 9, 1918 | 23 |
| Over Here | (Unknown) | Fulton Theatre | September 10, 1918 | September 30, 1918 | 23 |
| Three Wise Fools | Judge James Trumbull | Criterion Theatre | October 31, 1918 | August 1, 1919 | 316 |
| The Ouija Board | Henry Annixter | Bijou Theatre | March 29, 1920 | May 1, 1920 | 64 |
| The Half Moon | John Copley Adams | Liberty Theatre | November 1, 1920 | December 11, 1920 | 48 |
| Alias Jimmy Valentine | Robert Fay, Lieut. Gov. of New York | Gaiety Theatre | December 8, 1921 | January 1, 1922 | 46 |
| The Charlatan | Mason Talbot | Times Square Theater | April 24, 1922 | June 17, 1922 | 61 |
| Lights Out | Mr. Peyton | Vanderbilt Theatre | August 17, 1922 | August 26, 1922 | 12 |
| It Is the Law | Theodore Cummings | Ritz Theatre | November 29, 1922 | March 1, 1923 | 125 |
| Thumbs Down | Judge Richard Fowler | 49th Street Theatre | August 6, 1923 | August 31, 1923 | 24 |
| Queen Victoria | Lord Palmerston | 48th Street Theatre | November 15, 1923 | December 1, 1923 | 44 |
| Fata Morgana | George's Father | Garrick Theatre | March 3, 1924 | October 11, 1924 | 120 |
| The Devil Within | Doctor Armstrong | Hudson Theatre | March 16, 1925 | April 4, 1925 | 24 |
| The Goat Song | Gospodar Jevrem Vesilie, Scavenger | Guild Theatre | January 25, 1926 | March 1, 1926 | 58 |
| The Half-Caste | Dr. David Holden | National Theatre | March 29, 1926 | May 1, 1926 | 64 |
| Trapped | Vincent Lorrimore | National Theatre | September 11, 1928 | September 30, 1928 | 15 |
| Adventure | Jed Hampton | Theatre Republic | October 1, 1928 | October ??, 1928 | 23 |
| Hotbed | Rev. David Rushbrook | Klaw Theatre | November 8, 1928 | November ??, 1928 | 19 |
| Brothers | Dr. Calvin Moore | 48th Street Theatre | December 25, 1928 | August 3, 1929 | 255 |
| Fata Morgana | George's Father | Royale Theatre | December 25, 1931 | January 1, 1932 | 27 |
| Angeline Moves In | Prosper Weems | Forrest Theatre | April 19, 1932 | April 30, 1932 | 7 |
| The Web | Professor Warren | Morosco Theatre | June 27, 1932 | July ??, 1932 | 24 |
| We, The People | Thomas Williamson | Empire Theatre | January 21, 1933 | March 1, 1933 | 49 |
| Nine Pine Street | Dr. Powell | Longacre Theatre | April 27, 1933 | May ??, 1933 | 28 |
| A Church Mouse | Count von Talheim | Mansfield Theatre | June 26, 1933 | July 1, 1933 | 9 |
| A Divine Moment | Admiral Standish | Vanderbilt Theatre | January 6, 1934 | January 13, 1934 | 9 |
| The First Legion | Rev. Paul Duquesne | 46th Street Theatre | October 1, 1934 | October 27, 1934 | 112 |
| The First Legion | Rev. Paul Duquesne | Biltmore Theatre | October 29, 1934 | January 5, 1935 | 112 |

### Film

* Partners of the Night (1920), as Police Commissioner Thorne
* The Cheat (1931), as Croupier
* Fifi (1933), as Uncle
* Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), as Judge
* Whipsaw (1935), as Dr. Williams
* Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), as the Doctor
* Half Angel (1936), as Judge
* And Sudden Death (1936), as Judge

## Explanatory footnotes

* ↑ J.P. Wearing indicates that the role of Scaramba was shared between Ingersoll and Melville Stewart (Wearing 2013, p. 421), although the available sources do not provide precise dates for when Ingersoll left the West End production of El Capitan to join the cast of Peter Stuyvesant at the Wallack's Theatre on October 2, 1899.
* ↑ The available sources are confusing about the opening date of Adventure at the Theatre Republic in 1928, which they document as having taken place on "September 25". At the Playbill website, the digitized copy of page 15 of the play's original playbill states clearly: "Week beginning Monday evening, October 1, 1928" (Adventure Playbill #9965). Unless the closing date of Trapped on "September 30" at the National Theatre is in error, it seems improbable that Ingersoll could also have performed in Adventure if the latter had really opened on "September 25", as currently documented at both the IBDB and Playbill websites. Both these sources are also silent about the closing date of Adventure (Adventure IBDB #10723; Adventure Playbill #9965).