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Painted by Henry Perronet Briggs, this portrait depicts the great Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge in the role of Othello. National portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource
The most highly esteemed African-American actor of the nineteenth-century .
Aldridge earned international recognition as one of his era’s finest actors for his moving theatrical performances throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, Europe and the United States.
Although born free in New York City, he was the son of a slave turned Calvinist preacher. Aldridge saw limited theatrical opportunities in the United States and, after training at the African Free School in New York City, left the United States for Europe in 1824; studying drama at the University of Glasgow in Scotland for more than a year.
Debuting onstage at the Royal Coburg in London, England, in 1825, Aldridge won widespread praise for his portrayal of Shakespeare’s Othello, a role that became his trademark, as well as for renditions of other leading characters during the
Aldridge mastered Black and White characters throughout dramatic literature and was hailed from city to city as an actor of great genius. Besides Othello, his best-known roles were title roles in Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko and Thomas Norton’s The Slave, and characters in Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Castle Spectre, Isaac Bickerstaffe’s The Padlock and Edward Young’s The Revenge.
For many, the mounting claims that Aldridge was the greatest actor of his day were confirmed when he filled in as Othello for renowned English thespian Edmund Kean, who fell ill during a performance at London’s Covent Garden in 1833. Although some critics grumbled at Kean’s having been eclipsed by the young upstart, twenty-six-year-old Aldridge received immense public acclaim for his performance - and his fame spread throughout Europe.
In 1852, Aldridge toured Europe performing Shakespearean tragedies and was so successful that he was invited to play Othello at the prestigious Lyceum Theatre in London in 1858. He was offered the same role by the Haymarket Theatre in 1865.
Aldridge was married twice, first to an Englishwoman and then to a wealthy Swede, and he had four children. In 1867, at the height of his career, he died of respiratory failure while on tour in Lodz, Poland, and was buried in that city.
Not only did Aldridge leave a rich legacy of drama, voice and rhetoric, but he marked the beginning of the tradition of polished
