W. Bradfield

Walter Louis Bradfield was born on 13 June 1866 in England, the son of William Bradfield, a civil servant. He received his education at the Grocers' School in Hackney and made his first stage appearance in 1889 in a pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. Prior to embarking on his theatrical career, he had married Jessie B. Best in 1888. He went on to become a recognized actor and singer in Edwardian musical comedy and other theatrical works.

Bradfield established himself as a London favorite beginning in 1893, when he appeared at the Gaiety Theatre in A Gaiety Girl, portraying the character Bobbie Rivers, a role he continued through 1894. He subsequently took on the part of Dick Cunningham in The Geisha in 1896. That same year brought his Broadway debut, as he played Captain Coddington, the leading man in the musical comedy In Town, which opened in New York in 1897. The character was a financially struggling army officer who takes a group of actresses from the Ambiguity Theatre to lunch and ultimately marries one of them.

Bradfield continued to accumulate leading roles in London's West End throughout the early twentieth century. He appeared as Harry Gordon in The Girl from Kays from 1902 to 1903, followed by The Little Michus from 1905 to 1906, and The Merveilleuses from 1906 to 1907, in which he played Lagorille, the Incroyable. On 4 September 1905, he participated in a one-day cricket match at Lord's, representing the Actors against the Jockeys, scoring six runs before being bowled out by Chaloner.

Bradfield returned to Broadway in 1911, appearing in the musical The Quaker Girl. He died at Brighton on 12 August 1919 at the age of 53.