J. H. Ryley

John Handford Ryley (11 September 1841 – 28 July 1922) was an English singer and actor born in London, the son of John Riley, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife Elizabeth, née Perry. He became particularly well known for comic baritone roles in the Savoy Operas performed with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, primarily before American audiences.

Ryley began his performing career in London's music hall circuit. By February 1863 he was appearing at Deacon's Music Hall, Sadler's Wells Theatre, Price's Music Hall, and the Bedford Music Hall in Camden Town, where he billed himself as "the comical comique." He married actress Marie Barnam in 1864, and the couple had a daughter, Wallis Marie, born in 1866. Together they developed a comic duet and dance act that brought them engagements in London and on tour, including an appearance at the Gaiety Theatre in 1872. A New York critic later suggested that their "Dancing Quakers" routine was parodied in the characters of Margaret and Despard in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1887 opera Ruddigore. Ryley also appeared at the Gaiety that same year in the musical play Ali Baba a la Mode. He and Barnam subsequently separated.

During the mid-1870s Ryley took on a series of notable provincial roles. In 1875 he played Fernando in the comic opera Cattarina, with music by Frederic Clay and a libretto by Robert Reece, at the Charing Cross Theatre and later on tour. The following year in Manchester he portrayed Captain Flint in Alfred Cellier's The Sultan of Mocha, and later created the role of Zapeter in W. S. Gilbert and Clay's Princess Toto, premiering at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham before touring the provinces. He also played Amen Squeak in Cellier's Nell Gwynne at Prince's Theatre in Manchester.

In 1878 Ryley joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy-Opera Company Ltd., taking the role of John Wellington Wells in the first provincial production of The Sorcerer and the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury on the same bill. That September the company launched the first provincial tour of H.M.S. Pinafore, with Ryley as Sir Joseph Porter. In October he contributed a one-act curtain raiser to the program, Congenial Souls, a farce he wrote set to music by Jacques Offenbach — the only play he is known to have authored. Madeleine Lucette, who would later become his second wife, appeared alongside him in that production, playing Clara while Ryley played Adolphus.

Ryley's American career began in earnest in 1879 when he was selected to play Sir Joseph Porter in the first authentic American production of H.M.S. Pinafore at New York City's Fifth Avenue Theatre, which opened on 1 December. On 31 December of that same year, at the same theatre, he created the role of Major General Stanley in the American premiere of The Pirates of Penzance, continuing in the role throughout the subsequent US tour until June 1880. He went on to appear in leading roles across all of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's New York productions through 1883. Those credits included Captain Felix Flapper in Billee Taylor (1881), Reginald Bunthorne in Patience (1881–82), Blood Red Bill in Edward Solomon's Claude Duval (1882), Philip of Aragon and Don Jose de Mantilla in Les Manteaux Noirs (1882), Peter van Dunk in Rip Van Winkle (1882, alongside Selina Dolaro), the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, and Mr. Cox in Cox and Box (1882–83).

After departing the company, Ryley continued performing in major Gilbert and Sullivan productions in America. In 1884 he appeared on Broadway, playing King Gama in New York's first production of Princess Ida at the Fifth Avenue Theatre and also starring in Falka at the Casino Theatre. The following year he played Ko-Ko in The Mikado at the Standard Theatre in New York and subsequently in Chicago. In 1887 he starred in Karl Millöcker's Gasparone at the Standard Theatre alongside Lillian Russell and Eugene Oudin, and also appeared with Russell in a tour that included Iolanthe, in which he again played the Lord Chancellor. In February 1889 he portrayed Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard in Boston, Massachusetts, and continued performing in New York and on tour throughout most of the 1890s.

During this period Ryley and Lucette lived together in New Rochelle, New York, along with his daughter Wallace. Though they had behaved as a married couple for years, their legal marriage did not take place until 1890, after Ryley finalized his divorce from his first wife. Lucette went on to become a successful playwright in both New York and London by the mid-1890s, and Ryley was frequently involved in the production and direction of her plays.

The couple eventually returned to England, where Ryley appeared in London on several occasions between 1900 and 1913. His London roles included Kit Barniger in Mice and Men at the Lyric Theatre in 1902 and Josh Harmony in Mrs. Grundy at the Scala Theatre in 1905, both written by his wife. Late in his career Ryley also worked in film, appearing as the Gravedigger in a 1913 silent adaptation of Hamlet starring Johnston Forbes-Robertson, whom he counted as a close friend, and in the 1916 mystery Who Killed Simon Baird?

Ryley died on 28 July 1922 in Edgware, Middlesex, at the age of 81, survived by his wife Madeleine Lucette Ryley.