J. Harry Benrimo

J. Harry Benrimo, born Joseph Henry McAlpin Benrimo in San Francisco on June 21, 1870, was an American actor, playwright, and director who worked extensively in the theater from the 1890s through the early 1930s. He also pursued academic work as a Williams College scholar and professor of music. He died on March 26, 1942. Scholar W. Anthony Sheppard described him as a central and versatile figure in Orientalist theater.

Benrimo's stage career began in California in 1891, when he appeared in an amateur production of Dion Boucicault's The Long Strike in San Francisco. The following November he took the lead role of Captain Bradey in Augustus Thomas's A Woman of the World at Odd Fellows Hall in the same city. By early 1892 he was working professionally with a stock company at the Clunie Opera House in Sacramento, where his roles included Mr. Guppy in a stage adaptation of Bleak House and Bummer Smith in Clay M. Greene's M'Liss. That April he joined a company operated by Joseph R. Grismer and Phoebe Davies at San Francisco's Alcazar Theatre, performing the Chef in A. M. Palmer's The Merchant. He continued acting in California theaters, primarily in San Francisco but also in Sacramento, for the next several years, working in repertory at the Alcazar and with a troupe connected to Oliver Morosco's theater. Among the many roles he performed during this period were Dr. Lanyon in Thomas Russell Sullivan's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Polonius in Hamlet, Captain Ratts in The Octoroon, and Thomas Kerwin in Augustus Thomas's New Blood.

In May 1897 Benrimo created the role of Hop-Kee in the world premiere of Francis Powers's The First Born at the Alcazar Theatre, a part that initiated his long association with Orientalist theater. Producer and director David Belasco saw the production and brought it to Broadway with Benrimo in the same role. Benrimo made his Broadway debut on October 5, 1897, at the Manhattan Theatre, and later performed the part at the Globe Theatre in London. He remained active as a New York stage actor through 1912, accumulating a substantial list of credits. He portrayed Major von Wolfshagen in The Conquerors at the Empire Theatre in 1898, the Honorable Crosby Jethro in Lord and Lady Algy at the Empire in 1899, and the Archduke of Vasungia in My Lady's Lord at the same theater from 1899 to 1900. Further roles included Captain de Mendoza in In the Palace of the King at the Theatre Republic in 1900, Marshal Marmont in L'Aiglon at the Knickerbocker Theatre in 1900, and Lord Tinsel in The Hunchback at the Garrick Theatre in 1902.

Benrimo found particular success on Broadway portraying the Japanese characters Bento and Kato in Belasco's The Darling of the Gods, which ran at the Belasco Theatre from 1902 to 1904, and the Native American character Billy Jackrabbit in The Girl of the Golden West at the Belasco Theatre, where he appeared during the 1905–1906 and 1907–1908 seasons. Additional Broadway credits from this period include Mimus the Echo in Adrea at the Belasco Theatre in 1905, Sunol the Muleteer in The Rose of the Rancho at the Belasco Theatre from 1906 to 1907, Prince Yoland in An Englishman's Home at the Criterion Theatre in 1909, Pietro Pacello in The Heights at the Savoy Theatre in 1910, Anton Schindler in Beethoven at the New Theatre in 1910, Frederick Lowell in Keeping Up Appearances at Collier's Comedy Theatre in 1910, and James Durkin in Maggie Pepper at the Harris Theatre from 1911 to 1912.

Around 1912 Benrimo shifted his focus from acting to playwriting and directing. He and George Cochrane Hazelton co-authored The Yellow Jacket, drawing on ethnographic research that included attending Chinese opera performances in the theaters of San Francisco's Chinatown. The two began developing the play in the summer of 1910, working to translate elements of Chinese opera into a romantic comedy format. The Yellow Jacket premiered at the Fulton Theatre on November 4, 1912, with Benrimo also directing, and ran for 80 performances on Broadway. Scholar Ashley Thorpe of the University of London noted that the play's plot closely resembles Ji Junxiang's The Orphan of Zhao, though Benrimo and Hazelton did not credit a single source. The production was staged at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End in 1913 and was subsequently revived on Broadway in 1916 and 1928, and in London at the Kingsway Theatre in 1922. In the 1922 London revival Benrimo returned to the stage in the role of The Property Man.

Benrimo's other significant work as a playwright came through his collaboration with Harrison Rhodes on The Willow Tree, based on a Japanese legend, which was mounted at the Cohan and Harris Theatre in New York in 1917. The play was later adapted into a novel in 1918, a film in 1920 by screenwriter June Mathis and director Henry Otto, and the Broadway musical Cherry Blossoms in 1927. Benrimo also co-translated, with Agnes Morgan, a play called Taking Chances from the German original by Siegfried Geyer and Paul Frank, which was staged at the 39th Street Theatre in 1915.

As a director, Benrimo was active on Broadway from 1914 to 1931. He staged the original production of The Blue Paradise at the Casino Theatre beginning in August 1915 and directed the comic operetta The Well of Romance in 1930.