# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooke, George Frederick

​COOKE, GEORGE FREDERICK (1756–1811), actor, was born, according to an account supplied by himself, in Westminster 17 April 1756. Soon after his birth he lost his father, who was in the army, and went with his mother, whose name was Renton, to live in Berwick, where he was educated. Here, after her death, he resided with her two sisters, by whom he was bound apprentice to John Taylor, a Berwick printer. While still a schoolboy he conceived from the performances of travelling companies a strong fancy for the stage, and took part with his fellows in rough and unpretending performances. In 1771 he went to London and afterwards to Holland, probably as a sailor or cabin boy, returning to Berwick in 1772. His first appearance as an actor was in Brentford in the spring of 1776, when he played Dumont in ‘Jane Shore.’ In 1777 he joined in Hastings a company under a manager named Standen. In the spring of the following year he played in London at the Haymarket, which, out of the season, was opened for a benefit, appearing as Castalio in the ‘Orphan.’ Between this period and 1779, when he joined Fisher's company at Sudbury in Suffolk, Cooke was seen at the Haymarket during the off-season in more than one character, but failed to attract any attention. After performing in many midland towns he appeared, 2 Jan. 1784, in Manchester as Philotas in the ‘Grecian Daughter’ of Murphy. In Manchester he stood in high favour, and he met with favourable recognition in Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, York, and other northern towns. While still young he fell into habits of drinking. After living for some months in sobriety he would disappear to hide himself in the lowest haunts of dissipation or infamy. In Newcastle the admiration for Cooke, according to the rather reluctant testimony of Tate Wilkinson, his manager, amounted to frenzy (Wandering Patentee, iii. 23). On his first appearance in York, 29 July 1786, he played Count Baldwin in ‘Isabella,’ Garrick's alteration of Southerne's ‘Fatal Marriage,’ to the Isabella of Mrs. Siddons. During the years immediately following Cooke played with various country companies, studying hard when sober, acquiring much experience, and obtaining a reputation as a brilliant and, except in one respect, a trustworthy actor. On 19 Nov. 1794 Cooke made his appearance at Dublin in ‘Othello.’ He sprang at once to the ​front rank in public estimation, and was received in a round of characters of importance with augmenting favour. In March 1795 he quitted the theatre on some frivolous excuse, the real cause being drunkenness. Various mad proceedings in 1766 culminated in his enlisting in a regiment destined for the West Indies. Prevented by sickness from embarking, he spoke, in Portsmouth where he was quartered, to Maxwell, the manager of the theatre. Through the agency of Banks and Ward, his former managers in Manchester, his discharge was bought, and after many relapses, which almost cost him his life, he reappeared in Manchester. While at Chester in 1796 he married Miss Alicia Daniels of the Chester Theatre. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Cooke, who had been engaged in Dublin where Cooke reopened as Iago 20 Nov. 1796, quitted her husband and her engagement. On 4 July 1801 Mrs. Cooke appeared before Sir William Scott in Doctors' Commons to dispute the validity of the marriage, which was pronounced ‘null and void.’ In Dublin as elsewhere Cooke was in difficulties with debt. His extravagance was so reckless that after in a drunken fit challenging a working man, according to one account a soldier, who, unwilling to hurt him, declined to fight a rich man, he thrust his pocket-book with bank notes to the extent of some hundreds of pounds into the fire, and, declaring he now owned nothing in the world, renewed the invitation to combat. After playing in Cork and Limerick he returned to Dublin. In June 1800 he accepted from Lewis, acting for Thomas Harris, an engagement for Covent Garden. What was practically his first appearance in London took place 31 Oct. 1801 as Richard III. His success was brilliant, though such limitations in his art as want of dignity, and indeed of most humanising traits, were even then noted. Shylock followed, 10 Nov.; Sir Archy McSarcasm in ‘Love à la Mode,’ 13 Nov.; Iago, 28 Nov; Macbeth, 5 Dec.; Kitely in ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ 17 Dec.; the Stranger, for his benefit, 27 Dec.; and for the benefit of Lewis, Sir Giles Overreach, 28 March 1801. During the season he behaved with commendable discretion, and Harris, the manager of Covent Garden, presented him on the occasion of his benefit with the charge (136l.) ordinarily made in the case of benefits for expenses. He acted sixty-six times in all, twenty-two of his representations being of Richard III. It was different upon his return. With characteristic recklessness and improvidence he put in no appearance on 14 Sept. 1802, when Covent Garden was announced to open with him as Richard. That night he was playing in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He did not arrive until 19 Oct. 1802, when he played Richard. Public disappointment was the greater, as Kemble, accepting the challenge involved in his appearance in Richard III, had, contrary to theatrical etiquette, announced that play as the opening piece at Drury Lane after it had been advertised for Covent Garden. An apology, which was far from satisfactory, was spoken by Cooke and accepted by the audience. The spell was, however, broken, and worse was behind. On 11 May 1802 he was, for the first time in London, too drunk to continue the performance. Between this period and 1810, when he quitted London, Cooke played among Shakespearean characters: Jaques, King Lear, Falstaff in ‘Henry IV,’ pts. i. and ii., and in ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ Hamlet, King John, Hubert in ‘King John,’ Macduff, Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ Kent in ‘Lear,’ Henry VIII, besides principal characters in the tragedies of Otway, Addison, and others, and in the comedies of Sheridan, Colman, and Macklin. His great characters were Sir Pertinax McSycophant, Iago, Richard III, Sir Giles Overreach, Shylock, and Sir Archy McSarcasm, everything indeed in which greed, fierceness, and hypocrisy can be shown. Leigh Hunt disputes on this ground his claim to be a tragedian, saying that much even of his Richard III ‘is occupied by the display of a confident dissimulation, which is something very different from the dignity of tragedy’ (Critical Essays, p. 217). To his Sir Pertinax McSycophant Leigh Hunt gives very high praise. An opinion quoted by Genest (Account of the Stage, viii. 197) as that of a very judicious critic is that ‘Cooke did not play many parts well, but that he played those which he did play well better than anybody else.’ Sir Walter Scott speaks warmly of Cooke's Richard, giving it the preference over that of Kemble. His Hamlet, 27 Sept. 1802, was a failure, and was only once repeated. George III said, when he heard Cooke was going to play Hamlet: ‘Won't do, won't do. Lord Thurlow might as well play Hamlet’ (Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds, 1826, ii. 322). In 1803, while playing in ‘Love à la Mode,’ Cooke was hissed off the stage for drunkenness, and the curtain was dropped. For this offence on his next appearance he made an apology, which was accepted. The ice once broken his offences became more frequent, and the magazines of the early portion of the nineteenth century which deal with theatrical subjects are occupied with constant stories of his misdeeds. His apologies and references to his old complaint were in time received with ‘shouts of laughter.’ In 1808 Cooke married a Miss Lamb of Newark. After the destruction by fire of Covent Gar​den Theatre, 20 Sept. 1808, he went with the Covent Garden Company, 26 Oct. 1808, to the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, and 3 Dec. to the Haymarket. He attempted to act during the period of the O.P. Riots, commencing September 1809. On 5 June as Falstaff in ‘Henry IV, Part I.,’ he played for the last time in London. In Liverpool, whither he proceeded, he met Thomas Cooper, known as the American Roscius, who offered him an engagement for America of 12,000 dollars and three benefits for forty nights, with the option of renewing the engagement annually for three years. This Cooke accepted. So besotted, however, was his condition, and so under the control was he of men who preyed upon him, that he had to be smuggled away in a manner that belongs rather to a romantic abduction of a heroine than a transaction with a man of fifty-four years. Many accusations, apparently unjust, of having inveigled away Cooke while drunk were brought against Cooper. Cooke embarked at Liverpool 4 Oct. 1810 on board the Columbia. The vessel was almost unprovided with stimulants. What was on board was soon drunk, and Cooke, after a considerable period of enforced abstinence, arrived in New York, 16 Nov. 1810, in better condition than he had been for years. His first appearance in New York took place 21 Nov. 1810 as Richard. The house was crowded to the roof, and his reception was triumphant. His successive performances were enthusiastically followed. He had lost, however, the habit of self-restraint, and on his third appearance he was intoxicated. He visited the principal American cities of the north, an object of mingled admiration and pity, obtaining in his cups indulgence for the most distressing acts of insolence. On 19 July he married his third wife, Mrs. Behn, who remained with him until his death, which took place in New York, in the Mechanic Hall, 26 Sept. 1811, of dropsy, resulting from his irregular life. He acted for the last time in Providence, Rhode Island. On 27 Sept. 1811 his body was placed, in the presence of a large assemblage, in the burying-ground of St. Paul's Church. Upon his visit to America, 1820–1, Kean, who regarded Cooke as the greatest of actors, had the body removed to another spot in the same cemetery and reburied, erecting a monument in honour of Cooke's genius. During the transmission he abstracted one of the toe bones, which he kept as a relic, compelling all visitors to worship it until Mrs. Kean, in disgust, threw it away (see Life of Kean, by Bryan Waller Proctor, 1835, ii. 196 et seq.) Cooke had a fine person, though his arms were short, a noble presence, and an intelligent and animated face. His voice was grating, and he had a habit of pitching it high. His position is in the highest rank of his art. He left behind him a diary, which is very fragmentary, and deals principally with his opinions on literary, dramatic, or political subjects. Abundant extracts from this are included in the ‘Memoirs of Cooke,’ by Dunlap, 2 vols. 8vo, 1813. Portions of it were written while in confinement for debt. Its recommencement is always a sign of attempted reformation. In his drunken moments Cooke boasted of having been the son of an officer, born in Dublin barracks, and having himself served as an ensign in the American war. He pointed out in America the scenes of his own exploits. He also claimed to have been a midshipman. There is more than one hiatus in his life, and it is possible he was a soldier and probable he was a cabin boy. Shortly before his death he stated gravely that he was born in Westminster. The information he supplies is to be received with little credit. Though very quarrelsome, Cooke was burdened with no superfluous courage. Many stories are told of his manner of addressing the public. One which has been frequently repeated, to the effect that when speaking to the Liverpool public which had hissed him he told them there was not a brick in their houses that was not cemented by the blood of a slave, is not too trustworthy. If ever delivered the speech appears at least not to have been impromptu. Cooke, who commenced in London as a rival to Kemble, acted with him and Mrs. Siddons from the season 1803–4 to the end of his London performances. He created at Covent Garden a few original characters, Orsino in ‘Monk’ Lewis's ‘Alfonso,’ 15 Jan. 1802; a character unnamed in ‘Word of Honour,’ attributed to Skeffington, 26 May 1802; Peregrine in the younger Colman's ‘John Bull,’ 5 March 1803; Sandy MacTab in ‘Three per Cents.,’ by Reynolds 12 Nov. 1803; a character in Holman's ‘Love gives the Alarm,’ 23 Feb. 1804; Lord Avondale in Morton's ‘School of Reform,’ 15 Jan. 1805; Lavensforth in ‘To Marry or Not to Marry,’ by Mrs. Inchbald, 16 Feb. 1805; Prince of Altenberg in Dimond's ‘Adrian and Orrila,’ 15 Nov. 1806; and Colonel Vortex in ‘Match-making,’ ascribed to Mrs. C. Kemble, 24 May 1808. No less than seven portraits of Cooke by different artists are in the Garrick Club. Five of them are in characters.
[Authorities cited above; an anonymous Life of Cooke, 1813; Monthly Mirror, various numbers; Mrs. Mathews's Tea-Table Talk, 2 vols. 1857; Thespian Dict. 1805; Oulton's Hist. of Theatres; Baker, Reed, and Jones's Biog. Dram.]
J. K.