Arthur Playfair

Arthur Wyndham Playfair (20 October 1869 – 28 August 1918) was an English actor and singer born in Ellichpur, India. His stage career began in London in December 1887, and he went on to work across Victorian burlesque, comic opera, Edwardian musical comedy, and wartime revue.

Playfair's early career established him in several notable productions. He created a role in the Victorian burlesque Cinder Ellen up too Late in 1891, followed by the comic opera The Mountebanks in 1892, with music by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. In 1894 he appeared as Sir Reddan Tapeleigh alongside Jessie Bond in the musical comedy Go-Bang, with lyrics by Adrian Ross and music by F. Osmond Carr. The following year he appeared in another Gilbert and Carr collaboration, the comic opera His Excellency.

Playfair toured the United States in 1901 and again in 1903, and his Broadway appearances spanned the years 1901 to 1904. His credits during this period included Letty, in which he played Bernard Mandeville in 1904, and Saucy Sally. He also appeared in A Message from Mars. Among his most prominent Broadway engagements was The Man from Blankley's, in which he originated the role of Butler at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London before bringing the production to the Criterion Theatre in New York in 1903 alongside Charles Hawtrey. He reprised the Butler role in the 1906 London revival of the play at the Haymarket Theatre.

His later London career included the title role in Preserving Mr. Panmure in 1911 and the role of Baron Dauvray in The Girl in the Taxi in 1912. During the First World War, Playfair appeared in a succession of revues, beginning with The Passing Show at the Palace Theatre, London, in 1914. He followed that with Bric-a-Brac in 1915 and Vanity Fair in 1916, both also at the Palace. In 1916 he appeared in the silent film Judged by Appearances. He then performed in Bubbly at the Comedy Theatre in 1917, and in 1918–19 appeared in Tails Up at the same venue.

In his personal life, Playfair married the actress Lena Ashwell OBE in 1896. He initiated divorce proceedings in 1903 following her adultery with Robert Taber, the former husband of actress Julia Marlowe. The divorce was finalized in 1908, with proceedings that also revealed Playfair's own adultery, domestic violence, alcoholism, and transmission of venereal disease to his wife. He was a cousin of the actor Nigel Playfair. Playfair died in Brighton, England, in August 1918 at the age of 48.