Matheson Lang

Matheson Alexander Lang was born on May 15, 1879, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of Rev. Gavin Lang of Inverness, Scotland, and a cousin of Cosmo Gordon Lang, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated at Inverness College and the University of St Andrews. Lang went on to become a stage and film actor and playwright whose Broadway career spanned from 1902 to 1927.

Lang made his stage debut in 1897 and built his early reputation through Shakespearean roles, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet, as well as works by Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. He performed with the theatrical companies of Sir Frank Benson, Lillie Langtry, and Ellen Terry. In 1906, he played Tristram in Joseph Comyns Carr's Tristram and Iseult at the Adelphi Theatre, alongside Lily Brayton as Iseult and Oscar Asche as King Mark, with Lang's wife Nelly Hutin Britton, whom he had married in London in 1903, playing Arganthael. Asche thereafter habitually referred to Lang as "Tristram."

Lang and Britton subsequently formed their own company and toured India, South Africa, and Australia from 1910 to 1913 performing Shakespeare. Upon returning to England in 1913, Lang created what became one of his most celebrated stage roles, the title character in Mr. Wu. He reprised the role in a 1919 silent film and later titled his 1940 memoirs Mr. Wu Looks Back. In 1914, he and Britton produced The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet at the Old Vic.

In 1916, Lang appeared as Shylock in a film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, with Britton as Portia, making him one of the first major theatre stars to work in film. He appeared in more than 30 films and was among Britain's leading film actors of the 1920s. Notable screen roles included Guy Fawkes in 1923, Matthias in The Wandering Jew in 1923, Henry IV in Henry, King of Navarre in 1924, and Henry V in Royal Cavalcade in 1935. He also played the lead role of Yuan Sing in the first film adaptation of The Chinese Bungalow in 1926 and again in 1930.

As a playwright, Lang wrote Carnival, produced in 1919, and The Purple Mask, produced in 1920, both of which reached Broadway and were adapted into films. His Broadway credits as a performer and book writer also included the comedy Twelfth Night, The Wandering Jew, and Don, among other productions.

In 1940, Lang and Britton were visiting their friend Dornford Yates near Pau, France, when France surrendered to Germany. The couple escaped through Spain to Portugal. Lang died on April 11, 1948, in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the age of 68.