Gerald du Maurier

File:Gerald du Maurier Vanity Fair 25 December 1907.jpg for Vanity Fair, 1907.]]

Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was born on 26 March 1873 in Hampstead, London, the son of Emma (Wightwick) and George du Maurier, author and Punch cartoonist, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby. During his childhood the family home was at New Grove House in Hampstead Grove.

He attended Heath Mount School{{Cite book |last=Du Maurier |first=Daphne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u14wFLATFnQC&q=%22Gerald+du+Maurier%22+%22Heath+Mount%22 |title=Gerald: A Portrait |publisher=Doubleday, Doran & Company |year=1935 |language=en}} and Harrow School. He initially pursued a career in business, but it did not suit him, and he began working as an actor. He obtained his first engagement, a small part in Sydney Grundy's An Old Jew, by means of his father's friend John Hare, manager of the Garrick Theatre.

After playing a number of small roles before 1900, including a part in his father's popular drama Trilby with Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1895, his popularity became assured as a result of his acclaimed performance in major roles during the premieres of two J.M. Barrie plays: as Ernest in The Admirable Crichton during 1902, and the dual role of George Darling and Captain Hook (instead of Seymour Hicks, who had refused the part) in Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, at the Duke of York's Theatre, London, on 27 December 1904. He also played in other Barrie plays, including Dear Brutus.

In 1902, during The Admirable Crichton, also in the cast was actress Muriel Beaumont as Lady Agatha."Lady du Maurier", The Times, 29 November 1957, p. 5 They were married five months later on 11 April 1903 at St Peter, Cranley Gardens, Kensington.London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 Du Maurier and his wife had three children: the actress and writer Angela du Maurier (1904–2002), the writer Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) and the painter Jeanne du Maurier (1911–1997). His wife retired from the stage in 1910.

File:Gerald du Maurier, Angela, Daphne & Jeanne 1913.jpg

His nephews, his sister Sylvia Llewelyn Davies's sons, were the inspiration for Peter Pan and other boy characters of Barrie's fiction. The character of Wendy Darling in Peter Pan shares one of her middle names with du Maurier's daughter Angela, who in later years portrayed Wendy onstage herself.

With Frank Curzon, he co-managed Wyndham's Theatre from 1910 to 1925, and then worked for the St James's Theatre. Knighted during 1922 at the height of his popularity, he continued to perform throughout his life. During later years he acted in cinema roles such as Lord Camber's Ladies (1932), a German doctor in I Was a Spy (1933), the emperor's valet in Catherine the Great (1934) and, soon before his final illness, Weissensee in the Michael Balcon version of Jew Süss (1934).

Du Maurier was a regular cigarette smoker, and the du Maurier brand was named after him as a paid endorsement deal (he did not smoke them himself), to which he agreed to help pay taxes owed.{{Cite web|url=http://www.dumaurier.org/dumauriercigarettes.php|title=Du Maurier Cigarettes|website=www.dumaurier.org|access-date=2017-02-05}}

He served as President of the Actors' Orphanage Fund (now the Actors' Charitable Trust) from 1914 to his death, when he was succeeded by Noël Coward.

He joined the Freemasons' Green Room Lodge No. 2957 on 4 November 1904, an actors' lodge which included Leedham Bantock, Fred Terry and George Grossmith Jr. among its members.{{Cite web|url=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60620&h=824439&usePUB=true&_phsrc=qzP1016&_phstart=successSource&requr=281767034519552&ur=0&gsfn=&gsln=&h=824439|title=Join Ancestry®|website=www.ancestry.co.uk}}

File:Cannon Hall, A.R. Quinton, 1911.JPG, drawn by A.R. Quinton, 1911, the family home in London from 1916 and where du Maurier died.]]

He died on 11 April 1934 of colon cancer, at Cannon Hall, Cannon Place, Hampstead, his home since 1916. A blue plaque has been placed at the house in his memory.{{cite web|url=http://openplaques.org/plaques/578|title=Gerald du Maurier - Blue Plaque|publisher=openplaques.org|access-date=22 November 2013}}

His middle daughter Daphne refused to attend his funeral but wrote a biography of him – Gerald: A Portrait – which was published soon after his death.

• Bulldog Drummond with H.C. McNeile (1921)
• The Dancers by Viola Tree (1923)
• Behold, We Live by John Van Druten (1932)

;References

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;Sources

• {{Cite ODNB |last=Harding |first=James |title=Du Maurier, Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson (1873–1934) |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-32928 |access-date=6 August 2023 |date=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/32928 |language=en}}
• Sir Gerald du Maurier, Actor, Manager and Producer, Obituary, The Times, 12 April 1934

{{Commons category|Gerald du Maurier}}

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• [http://www.stagebeauty.net/th-frames.html?http&&&www.stagebeauty.net/produce/crich/th-crich.html The Admirable Crichton] – 1902 production, The Play Pictorial No. XI (1903).
• [http://lib-archives.ex.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=EUL+MS+207%2f4 Gerald du Maurier] at University of Exeter Special Collections

{{Daphne du Maurier|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1873 births

Category:1934 deaths

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male silent film actors

Category:English male stage actors

Category:English theatre directors

Category:Actor-managers

Category:English Freemasons

Category:English people of French descent

Category:People educated at Harrow School

Category:Actors awarded knighthoods

Category:People educated at Heath Mount School

Category:20th-century English male actors

Category:Knights Bachelor

Gerald

Category:Actors from the London Borough of Camden

Category:People from Hampstead