John Philip Kemble (1757 - 1823). John Philip Kemble was an English actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, also enjoyed success on the stage. The second child of Roger Kemble-the manager of the travelling theatre company the Warwickshire Company of Comedians-he was born at Prescot, Lancashire. His mother being a Roman Catholic, he was educated at Sedgley Park Catholic seminary, near Wolverhampton, and the English college at Douai, France, with a view to becoming a priest. At the end of the four years' course, he still felt no vocation for the priesthood, and returning to England he joined the theatrical company of Crump & Chamberlain, his first appearance being as Theodosius in Nathaniel Lee's tragedy of that name at Wolverhampton on 8 January 1776. In 1778, Kemble joined the York company of Tate Wilkinson, appearing at Wakefield as Captain Plume in George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer; in Hull for the first time as Macbeth on 30 October, and in York as Orestes in Ambrose Philips's Distresset Mother. In 1781 he obtained a star engagement at Dublin making his first appearance there on 2 November as Hamlet. He also achieved great success as Raymond in The Count of Narbonne, a play taken from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. Gradually he won for himself a high reputation as a careful and finished actor, and this, combined with the greater fame of his sister, Sarah, led to an engagement at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he made his first appearance on 30 September 1783 as Hamlet. In this role he awakened interest and discussion among the critics such as Harriet Evans Martin rather than the enthusiastic approval of the public. As Macbeth on 31 March 1785 he shared in the enthusiasm aroused by Sarah Siddons, and established a reputation among living actors second only to hers. Brother and sister had first appeared together at Drury Lane on 22 November 1783, as Beverley and Mrs Beverley in Edward Moore's The Gamester, and as King John and Constance in Shakespeare's tragedy. In the following year they played Montgomerie and Matilda in Richard Cumberland's The Carmelite, and in 1785 Adorni and Camiola in Kemble's adaptation of Philip Massinger's A Maid of Honor, and Othello and Desdemona. Between 1785 and 1787 Kemble appeared in a variety of roles, his Mentevole in Robert Jephson's Julia producing an overwhelming impression. In December 1787 he married Priscilla Hopkins Brereton, the widow of an actor and herself an actress. Kemble's appointment as manager of the Drury Lane theatre in 1788 gave him full opportunity to dress the characters less according to tradition than in harmony with his own conception of what was suitable. He was also able to experiment with whatever parts might strike his fancy, and of this privilege he took advantage with greater courage than discretion. He played a huge number of parts, including a large number of Shakespearean characters and also a great many in plays now forgotten, in his own version of Coriolanus, which was revived during his first season, the character of the noble Roman was so exactly suited to his powers that he not only played it with a perfection that has never been approached, but, it is said, unconsciously allowed its influence to colour his private manner and modes of speech. His tall and imposing person, noble countenance, and solemn and grave demeanour were uniquely adapted for the Roman characters in Shakespeare's plays; and, when in addition had to depict the gradual growth and development of one absorbing passion, his representation gathered a momentum and majestic force that were irresistible. In 1785 the well-known actor, John Henderson, asked his friend, the critic Richard Conversation Sharp, to go and see the newcomer, Kemble, and to report back to him. Sharp later wrote to Henderson with the following insightful description of what he had found, I went, as I promised, to see the new Hamlet, whose provincialfame had excited your curiosity as well as mine. There has notbeen such a first appearance since yours: yet Nature, though shehas been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied himvoice; of course he could not exemplify his own direction for theplayers to speak the speech trippingly on the tongue, and nowand then he was as deliberate in his delivery as if he had beenreading prayers, and had waited for the response.