"Mr Coates risked life and limb in his stage performances..."
June 7, 2016 1:41 PM   Subscribe

"... since the audience could not, would not, and did not, endure his interpretations of the classics. A riot was the inevitable result, death or serious injury the probable outcome, of these attempts." So wrote Edith Sitwell of the in/famous amateur thespian Robert "Romeo" Coates in her book English Eccentrics, here appreciated by the Paris Review blog.

Romeo Coates was fabulously wealthy and single-minded enough to pursue his obsession of becoming the greatest, the most famous, the most gorgeously attired, and the most diamond-covered thespian on the British stage, but, as Wikipedia writes: "His self-image included a highly mistaken belief in his own thespian prowess." Still he attained great fame as an actor, for very few in Regency London could resist the opportunity to view his work.

He appeared not only in Sitwell's work but also in Timbs' 1875 volume English Eccentrics and Eccentricities. (p. 41-44) He also had his own chapter in the Reminiscences of Captain Gronow, describing his début in Bath as "one of the most grotesque spectacles ever witnessed upon the stage".

Undine at the blog Strange Company gives another overview of his life and work, with many delightful excerpts from contemporary "appreciations" of his art.

Max Beerbohm's musing essay describes not only his début in Bath (where "In the balcony-scene he produced a snuff-box, and, after taking a pinch, offered it to the bewildered Juliet" and "the good-humoured public pelted him with fragments of the benches") but also relates his tragic wooing of the heiress Emma Tylney Long, for whom he shaved his great moustachios.

For more in-depth appreciation, S. C. Hall's 1862 article "The Amateur of Fashion" describes Coates' first appearance on the London Stage in the part of Romeo where "Many persons were affected to tears; which, however, streamed down cheeks untouched by the slightest influence of sorrow" and gives a novelistic description of the dreadful prank played upon him at the Prince Regent's expense.
posted by Hypatia (3 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Can the plot of Ghostbusters 3 be the team discovering that Shia LaBeouf is possessed by Mr Coates?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:32 PM on June 7, 2016


I’d not heard of Coates before - many thanks for the post, Hypatia. I saw a mention of Sitwell’s book the other day and thought maybe I should get hold of a copy: an impulse now reinforced on reading this.

I think it’s worth bearing in mind what being the ‘child of a wealthy sugar planter’ entailed in those days, as spelled out plainly in the last link: ‘he was the heir of an extensive coffee planter in the island of Demerara, reported to have left immense wealth, as well as large estates, with almost innumerable slaves’.

All those times Coates had died on-stage, and, in the end ‘he was caught and crushed between a Hansom cab and a private carriage as he was leaving a performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane […] and died at home six days later.’…

Lastly, I was amused by the following summary of his achievements on his wikipedia page:
See also
William Topaz McGonagall
Florence Foster Jenkins
Tommy Wiseau
posted by misteraitch at 7:09 AM on June 8, 2016


Yes, misteraitch. What's weird to modern ears is that though there is no known evidence that he was part black he was still the subject of, I guess I'd say "racialized" jokes about his "suntan" and "complexion" or being a "dusky friend". Part of his financial difficulties came from his ridiculous spending, but when his biographers speak of the "political circumstances" that contributed to them, it really means the gradual ending of slavery in the British colonies.
posted by Hypatia at 8:30 AM on June 8, 2016


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