thumb|Wyndham, circa 1900|alt=White middle-aged man, clean-shaven, in morning coat, seated in left semi-profile
Sir Charles Wyndham (né Culverwell; 23 March 1837 – 12 January 1919) was an English actor and theatre proprietor. Wyndham's Theatre in London is named after him, and he also built the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) nearby.
Wyndham's family intended him for a medical career, and he studied medicine while enthusiastically engaging in amateur theatricals in his spare time. Torn between medicine and the stage, he spent three years in the US as a surgeon in the Union army in the American Civil War and on two occasions acted unsuccessfully on the New York stage. After returning to Britain and establishing himself as an actor he made further trips to the US between 1882 and 1910, playing in theatres all around the country.
In London, Wyndham became known for his comic skills, both in light comedy and farce. He took over the management of the Criterion Theatre in 1876 and remained in charge there for more than 20 years. "Criterion farce" became a familiar feature of the West End theatre, usually risqué French pieces toned down to avoid shocking the Victorian British audience. Later, Wyndham was known for his appearances in period costume dramas, most of all T. W. Robertson's David Garrick, which he revived frequently. Among the authors who wrote for him were W. S. Gilbert, F. C. Burnand and Henry Arthur Jones. Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest with Wyndham in mind, but circumstances prevented him from playing in it.
Wyndham commissioned two London theatres, both designed by W. G. R. Sprague: Wyndham's, opened in 1899, and the New, which opened four years later. He retired in 1913, and died at his London house in 1919, aged 81.
Life and career
Early years
thumb|upright=.5|alt=portrait (probably amateur) of a young white male|Wyndham as a teenager
Wyndham was born in Liverpool on 23 March 1837, the second son of Major Richard Culverwell (c. 1820–1860) and his wife, Jane Lloyd. He had one brother, who did not survive childhood, and three sisters. Biographies published in Wyndham's lifetime state that Culverwell was a doctor, but in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2011) Michael Read writes:
Wyndham went to boarding-schools in England, Scotland, Germany and France. In Scotland he acquired the taste for amateur theatricals, and in Paris he frequented the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. The former was known for its classical style and the latter had a long tradition of farce; both were a formative influence on his acting. At the time, it was the practice of some London theatre managers to engage amateurs to appear in prominent roles in otherwise professional companies, and The Examiner took Wyndham for such an amateur. He remained in the Royalty's company for six months, and after his inauspicious debut he began to attract excellent reviews. In the farce Grandfather Whitehead he won praise from the theatrical newspaper The Era, which found him "a very promising Light Comedian" and his playing "as easy, natural and perfect as it need be". In a later review during the season The Era said:
thumb|upright|alt=white man with moustache and beard in American civil war uniform|As a military surgeon in the [[American Civil War]]
Still undecided between a theatrical and medical career, but too adventurous in spirit to relish the idea of becoming a family doctor, Wyndham travelled to the US later in 1862, determined to become a medical officer in the Union army in the American Civil War. The military authorities hesitated to sign him up, but he successfully persisted and served until the war was nearly over. During breaks from his military service he made two unsuccessful appearances on the stage in New York, first in a company led by John Wilkes Booth (later the assassin of Abraham Lincoln), and then in Mrs John Wood's troupe.
Professional advance, 1865–1873
In 1865 Wyndham returned to England. When Wyndham took the production to Liverpool the same paper described him as "one of the most accomplished actors we have seen for a long time". His success in this and other provincial productions enabled him to gain a West End engagement the following year.
Wyndham joined the company of the Royalty in May 1866 under the management of Patty Oliver. He played Sir Arthur Lascelles in Maddison Morton's well-known play, All That Glitters Is Not Gold, given as a supporting piece to a new extravaganza. Of his later roles during the season, the most prominent was as the smuggler, Hatchett, in F. C. Burnand's new and immensely popular burlesque on Douglas Jerrold's nautical comedy, Black-Eyed Susan, with Oliver and Nelly Bromley.
thumb|upright=1.5|left|Dearer Than Life, 1868: l to r, standing: [[Harriet Everard|Everard, Wyndham, Dyas, John Clayton and Hodson; and sitting: Toole, Brough and Irving|alt=Stage photograph showing group of 3 women and five men in everyday Victorian clothes]]
In 1867 Wyndham joined the company at the St James's Theatre, where he acted with Henry Irving for the first time. In September and October of the same year he appeared at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, in Kate Terry's farewell season, in which his roles included Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, the clown Modus in James Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, and Laertes in Hamlet. Before returning to the West End, he went to his home town, Liverpool, to create the role of Roberto in W.S.Gilbert's extravaganza La Vivandière. The Liverpool Mercury said, "In acting, singing and dancing he fairly carried the audience with him".
Returning to London, Wyndham was then engaged for the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, and there in October and November 1867 – as the gallant Dujardin in The Double Marriage and the seducer Hawksley in Still Waters Run Deep – he once again partnered Ellen Terry.
In 1868 Wyndham made his first venture into management, when he took the Princess's Theatre, presenting a season of three plays, but the undertaking was not successful. He returned to the US and appeared at Wallack's Theatre in 1869, playing Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, a role he made particularly his own.|group=n in Washington DC in March 1871. He continued to tour all over the US until 1873, with a repertory of 20 plays, mostly comedies. Who's Who in the Theatre records, "his success in that play was very great, and the play remained a trump card In his repertory for many years".|group=n Many of the plays he presented were adaptations from the French, in which the precision and speed of the Palais-Royal productions of his youth were a considerable influence on his staging.|group=n but did not appear in Burnand's Betsy (1879, 408 performances). A rare failure was Gilbert's farce Foggerty's Fairy (1881), in which Wyndham appeared with his former employer, Mrs John Wood; it opened on 15 December and closed on 6 January.
Costume drama, 1882–1899
thumb|With his future wife, [[Mary Moore (stage actress)|Mary Moore, in She Stoops to Conquer, 1890|alt=young white woman, sitting, older white man standing, both in 18th-century costume]]
In 1882 Wyndham again visited the United States, where he remained for eighteen months. His Criterion company was the first English troupe to reach America's west coast.
In 1897 Wyndham separated from his wife. His partner for the rest of his life was the actress Mary Moore, widow of James Albery; she had become Wyndham's leading lady, in 1885, and his business partner in 1896. Wyndham opened his new theatre with a revival of David Garrick, donating the first night's takings of £4,000 to charity. and it was the play that did not attract audiences. In 1903 he opened another theatre, the New (later called the Albery, and since 2006 the Noël Coward Theatre), in St Martin's Lane, backing onto Wyndham's. In the same year, he and his company appeared before Edward VII and his court at Windsor Castle, in David Garrick; in a second command performance at Windsor, in 1907, Wyndham played John Mildmay in Taylor's Still Waters Run Deep, in which he had first played (in another role) at the Queen's forty years earlier.