DeWolf Hopper

William DeWolf Hopper was born on March 30, 1858, in New York City, the son of John Hopper, a wealthy Quaker lawyer born in 1815, and Rosalie D'Wolf, born in 1827, who came from a noted Colonial family. His paternal grandfather, Isaac Hopper, was a Philadelphia Quaker and conductor of the Philadelphia station of the Underground Railroad. Known as Willie in childhood and later as Will or Wolfie, Hopper adopted his middle name as his stage name when he pursued an acting career, modifying the spelling to "DeWolf" to prevent the mispronunciation "Dwolf." Though his parents intended him for the law, he did not pursue that profession. He died on September 23, 1935, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he had traveled for a radio appearance. His funeral was held at the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.

Hopper made his stage debut in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 2, 1878. Standing 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighing 230 pounds, he found dramatic roles largely unavailable to him, but his loud bass singing voice suited him to musical theater. He began his career with Harrigan and Hart's company and achieved leading man status in The Black Hussar in 1885. His appearance in the hit Erminie followed in 1887, the same year he played Gaspard de Chateauvieux in Lorraine and Howja-Dhu in The Begum. Over the course of a Broadway career spanning 1887 to 1933, Hopper starred in more than thirty musicals, among them Castles in the Air (1890), Wang (1891), in which he played the title role, Panjandrum (1893), John Philip Sousa's El Capitan (1896), and Reginald De Koven's Happyland. He also produced work through the DeWolf Hopper Opera Company, including The Charlatan, which ran from December 5, 1889, through June 17, 1899, with Hopper playing Demidoff, and Mr. Pickwick, which ran from January 19 through May 1903. From 1911 to 1915, he appeared in a number of Gilbert and Sullivan comic patter roles, including productions of The Mikado, Patience, and H.M.S. Pinafore. The role he recalled with the greatest personal satisfaction was Old Bill in The Better 'Ole in 1919.

His later Broadway credits included the musical White Lilacs in 1928, the revues Some Party and Snapshots of 1921, the Radio City Music Hall Inaugural Program in 1932, and the play The Monster in 1933, in which he played Dr. Gustave Ziska. Among his other stage appearances were multiple roles in the burlesque extravaganza Fiddle-dee-dee, which ran from September 6, 1900, through April 20, 1901, where he played Hoffman Barr, Petrolius, Henry Cannedbeef, and other characters, and Hoity Toity, which ran from September 5, 1901, through April 19, 1902, where his roles included General Steele and Countess Zicka.

Hopper became widely associated with Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat," which he first performed on August 14, 1888, the day his friend, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tim Keefe, had his record 19-game winning streak stopped. He delivered the recitation to the New York Giants and Chicago Cubs on that occasion and subsequently performed it approximately 10,000 times in his career, including during curtain calls, on radio, and in a phonograph recording released in 1906. In 1923, he recited the poem in a short film produced using Lee De Forest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. He also appeared in the silent films Don Quixote (1915) and Casey at the Bat (1916) and was a part of the Triangle Film Corporation, which he described as "the first great flourish" of a "prattling, infant industry."

A lifelong baseball enthusiast and New York Giants fan, Hopper incorporated baseball themes into his stage work as early as The Black Hussar, where he performed a baseball-themed bit with fellow actors Digby Bell and Mathilde Cottrelly. In 1889, he became the founding president of the Actors' Amateur Athletic Association of America. That same year, he, Bell, and Jefferson De Angelis performed a baseball-themed encore skit during Boccaccio that the Brooklyn Eagle described as "a rich gag." Bell described Hopper that year as "the biggest baseball crank that ever lived."

Hopper had alopecia from childhood and wore wigs both on and offstage. In later years, a reaction to medicines taken for throat problems gave his skin a bluish tinge. He was married six times, all marriages ending in divorce. At age 21, he married his first wife, actress Helen Gardiner, his second cousin. His second wife was Ida Mosher; they had one son, John Allan Hopper, born in 1886, and divorced in 1893. His third wife was Edna Wallace, whom he married in 1893 and divorced in 1898. His fourth wife was choir singer Nella Bergen, née Reardon, whom he married in London in 1899 and divorced in 1913. His fifth wife, married from 1913 to 1922, was actress and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper; they had one son, actor William Hopper. His sixth wife, whom he married in 1925 and remained with until his death in 1935, was vocal instructor Lillian E. Glaser, née Faulkes, a widow. His autobiography, Once a Clown, Always a Clown, written with the assistance of Wesley W. Stout, was published in 1927.