Ralph Riggs

Ralph Roland Riggs (February 12, 1885 – September 16, 1951) was an American actor, singer, dancer, and choreographer born in St. Paul, Minnesota. A baritone in light opera and a skilled comedian and dancer, Riggs worked primarily in musical theatre across a career spanning more than four decades, though he also appeared in straight plays, choreographed Broadway productions, performed in musical short films during the 1930s, and appeared on American television from 1949 to 1951.

Riggs came from a theatrical family. His mother was actress Rose Stillman, who operated her own touring theatre troupe during the nineteenth century, and his father, Charles A. Riggs, was a cornettist, composer, and theatrical impresario who managed a chain of theaters on the Pacific Coast based out of Fresno, California. Riggs made his professional stage debut as an infant, playing Eliza's child in Uncle Tom's Cabin before he was a year old, and delivered his first speaking role at age three. By the time he was ten, the Boston Globe described him as a veteran actor who had appeared in productions including Little Lord Fauntleroy and Ten Nights in a Barroom. His childhood credits also included the title role in a stage adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Editha's Burglar and the role of Oliver Twist in a stage version of the Dickens novel, both performed in California theaters in 1895. In 1896 he appeared with his mother's company as Sam Willoughby in The Ticket-of-Leave Man, and in the summer of 1898 he worked as a dancer and comedian in vaudeville in Texas alongside his mother and actor-singer George Kunkel.

Through the turn of the century Riggs continued performing with his mother's stock company in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana, taking on roles including Judge Lovelace in T'riss; Or, Beyond the Rockies, Lord Bobberly in Charley's Aunt, and Duke Serge in The Clemenceau Case. The troupe operated under various names over the years, including the Rose Stillman Stock Company and, for a period, the Riggs Stock Company. In February 1900, Riggs was listed alongside his mother as co-manager of the company for performances in Albuquerque featuring contralto Sofia Scalchi.

In the summer of 1902 Riggs joined the Boston Ideal Opera Company, making his first appearance with them as Knee-Ban in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. By September of that year he had moved to the Ed Andrews Opera Company, performing the larger role of Pish-Tash in the same opera and establishing himself as a baritone with the troupe. His work with the Ed Andrews Opera Company from 1902 to 1905 encompassed a wide range of roles, including Nocky in Said Pasha, Giacomo in Fra Diavolo, the Sheriff in Martha, the notary in Les cloches de Corneville, and Florestein in The Bohemian Girl. He rejoined the Boston Ideal Opera Company for their 1903 summer season before returning to the Ed Andrews company, where a new comic opera called Birds of a Feather showcased his abilities as a dancer and comedian in the role of Sergeant Bonner. In 1905 he also performed as Tweedlepunch in Florodora with the Ed Andrews company, later touring in that work under his own banner, the Ralph Riggs Opera Company, in 1906. That same year his company toured productions of The Rajah of Altara, with Riggs in the title role, and Edmond Audran's La mascotte.

During the 1906–1907 season Riggs starred in a new musical, The College Boy, whose cast included his future wife, dancer Katherine Witchie, whom he married in 1910. Eight of the ten cast members were his relatives, among them his mother and his brother Bernard Riggs, who played the professor. The production toured successfully through the 1908–1909 season alongside The Bachelor and the Maid and It's All on the Quiet. Riggs and Witchie then toured together in Joseph E. Howard's Miss Nobody from Starland in 1910–1911, with Riggs portraying the lead male role of Preston Halliday.

Riggs made his Broadway debut in 1907, though the specific production was not recorded in his obituaries. His wife's New York Times obituary later stated that the couple made their Broadway debuts together in 1911 in Victor Herbert's The Enchantress, in which Riggs played Troute, the comedic head of the secret service, and Witchie played Nina, the maid. The production premiered at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. on October 9, 1911, before transferring to Broadway's New York Theatre later that month. The couple toured nationally in these roles from January 1912 through March 1913, until the Great Flood of 1913 stranded the company and ended the tour abruptly. Performing together as the dance team Witchie and Riggs, the couple had previously toured the Orpheum Circuit in vaudeville and went on to star together in several Broadway productions, including All Aboard (1913), The Princess Pat (1915), and Oh, Ernest! (1927).

Among Riggs's most significant solo Broadway credits was his portrayal of The Chief Justice in the original 1931 production of Of Thee I Sing, the George and Ira Gershwin musical, a role he reprised in the show's 1933 Broadway revival. He appeared in the original Broadway cast of Louisiana Purchase in 1941 and was part of the original Broadway cast of Oklahoma! in 1943. His Broadway work also included Trial by Jury, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Hot Mikado.

Riggs's final stage appearance came in 1951, when he played Arvide Abernathy in the first national tour of Guys and Dolls. He left that tour and died three weeks later on September 16, 1951, at the age of 66.