Shaun Glenville

Shaun Glenville, born John Browne on 16 May 1884 in Little Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland, was an Irish actor whose career spanned 62 years and encompassed music hall performance, Broadway appearances, film, and an extraordinary body of work in pantomime. He died on 28 December 1968. His mother, Mary Browne, née Lynch, managed the Mechanics' Theatre in Dublin, a venue that later gave way to the Abbey Theatre. His father, Henry Browne, worked as an accountant. A maternal cousin was Mary Concepta Lynch, known in religious life as Sister Mary Concepta. Glenville took his stage name from Glenville House in County Wicklow.

His first stage appearance came at the age of two weeks, when he was carried on during a production of Dion Boucicault's Arrah-na-Pogue at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham. By 1895, performing under the name Shaun Glenville-Luck, he had joined the music hall troupe The Six Brothers Luck, a group of burlesque and sketch artists. In 1906 he was working in Variety, and the following year he made his London debut at the Holborn Empire. Also in 1907, he toured the United States with The Six Brothers Luck, performing their farcical sketch The Demon of the Cellar alongside other variety acts. For a period he was also part of Fred Karno's company. By 1909 he was appearing regularly in pantomimes across Britain.

In 1910, Glenville played the Dame in the pantomime Little Jack Horner at Newcastle, where Dorothy Ward performed the role of principal boy. The two married on 13 May 1911 in a registry office, and after Ward converted to Catholicism, they held a Catholic ceremony in Dublin the following year. Their son was the actor and director Peter Glenville, who lived from 1913 to 1996. As a performing couple, Glenville and Ward built a long career in pantomime, with Ward as principal boy and Glenville as Dame, a pairing they sustained for 50 years. Music hall historian Christopher Pulling counted Glenville among the grand comedians of the music halls, and he appeared in more than 40 pantomimes over the course of his career.

His stage work prior to his Broadway appearances included The Gay Lothario in 1913; After The Girl and The Light Blues at the Gaiety Theatre, London in 1914; Humpty Dumpty with Ward at the Prince's Theatre, Bristol in 1914–15; Razzle Dazzle at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1916; and a tour of Happy Go Lucky with Ward in 1918. In 1921 Glenville appeared on Broadway in two productions: he played Sergeant O'Toole in the play Phoebe of Quality Street at the Shubert Theatre, and Doc Sniffkins in the musical The Whirl of New York, known in the database as The Talk of New York, at the Winter Garden Theatre. Critic Dorothy Parker wrote critically of both Ward and Glenville during the New York run of Quality Street, describing Glenville as a comedian whose methods she declined to elaborate on, characterizing his work as belonging to a dead past.

Following his Broadway engagement, Glenville continued an active career in Britain. He appeared in Mother Goose at the Palace Theatre, Manchester in 1922; Jenny at the Empire Theatre, London in 1922; The Apache at the London Palladium and on subsequent tour in 1926–27; No, No Nanette at the Hippodrome, London in 1936; and the touring revue Do You Remember? alongside George Robey and Buster Keaton in 1951, among many other productions. In 1940 he made two films: Dr. O'Dowd, in which he played Marius O'Dowd, and Jailbirds, in which he played Colonel Pepper.

Glenville also worked as a songwriter in collaboration with Fred Godfrey. He recorded two songs in 1915: Where Did You Get The Name Of Hennessy? and The Yiddisher Irish Baby. Sheet music and other sources document that he performed at least five additional Godfrey songs on stage, including When An Irishman Goes Fighting in 1914, Tommy's Learning French, which he sang at a concert in France for troops in June 1915 during World War I, Calling Me Home in 1922, My Little-Da-Monk in 1930, and It Takes An Irish Heart To Sing An Irish Song in 1932.

Glenville was a heavy drinker, and accounts survive of incidents during performances attributed to his drinking, including occasions when he forgot lyrics to songs he had performed many times previously and required prompting from fellow cast members.