George Carlton Wallace

MR. G. CARLTON WALLACE.

MR G. CARLTON WALLACE’s career on the stage is due to circumstances somewhat unique. From childhood he suffered from that dread affliction stammering; not merely a slight hesitancy in speech, but stammering in its worst form – when the effort to speak is painful to the speaker and ludicrous to the hearer – making even ordinary conversation impossible. When he was eighteen years of age, he firmly determined to rid himself of the incubus and for this purpose he studied elocution under Mr Joseph Morris, of Birmingham. Four years’ incessant practice, lasting several hours each day, reading aloud, reciting, and amateur acting, aided by the thorough tuition and patient tolerance of Mr Morris, enabled him at last to successfully grapple with and finally conquer this terrible infliction. It did more, for the continual reading of Shakespeare and the classical poets implanted in him a love for the stage. In 1894, at the age of twenty-two, Mr Wallace accepted with great trepidation his first professional engagement under that eminent Shakespearian tragedian, the late Osmond Tearle. Plenty of work, sometimes playing as many as eighteen small parts a week, combined with assistant stage-management, soon gave him the requisite confidence, and his subsequent success in his profession, also the many who have witnessed his performances can testify that the cure is permanent and complete. During the summer of 1895 Mr Wallace played a season of modern stock under the late Mr L. M. Snowden at the Gaiety Theatre, West Hartlepool, rejoining Osmond Tearle in the autumn for a round of better parts. Leaving Mr Tearle in the summer of 1896, another season of modern stock followed at the Theatre Royal, Aston, under Mr Charles Barnard, then an engagement until Christmas with Mrs Walter Bentley’s répertoire gave him his first chance of playing leading heavy parts. The work was hard but pleasant, for such parts as Nebu Singh, in The Indian Mutiny; Burleigh, in Mary, Queen of Scots; Beauscant, in Lady of Lyons; Rochester, in Nell Gwynne; Anthony Yeasts, in Jane Shore, and many others similar fell to his lot. Then after a short tour with Mr. J. R. Cassidy to play Dr. Riversdale, in Shamrock and Rose, he joined Mr Leonard Pagden to play Fernand Dias in Mizpah. In 1897 Mr Alfred Paumier engaged him to play Gilbert Westwood during his first tour of The Curate; on its termination he joined Messrs Heather and Fuller to play Crawford in The Slave Girl. Then another tour with Mr Alfred Paumier and The Curate lasted until the summer of 1898, when Messrs Murray and Dawson engaged him to play seconds in their stock season at the Queen’s Theatre, Birmingham. That autumn he created the part of Ben Jaggins in The Prodigal Parson, playing it on tour for five months under Mr Godfrey Lamplugh. In 1899 he played Captain Dudley Brand in Belasco’s La Belle Russe during a tour with Miss Ethel Arden. A long tour with Mr William Bourne came next, Mr Wallace playing Richard Ellerton in Man to Man and Eustace Courtney in Voices of London. A third tour with Mr Paumier followed this, then in the autumn of 1900 he created the part of Major Danton in A Sister’s Sacrifice, under Messrs Turner and Howe, afterwards rejoining Mr Paumier for his fourth tour of The Curate. Mr Will Smithson then engaged him for a stock season at the Theatre Royal, Merthyr, and the autumn of 1901 found him playing Colonel Dent in Mr Pitt Hardacre’s tour of The Golden Prospect. Then Messrs Dornan and M’Clellan engaged him to play the dual rôle of Ferdinand and Don Leo, in A Woman Adrift, remaining with them until the autumn of 1902, when he accepted special re-engagements to play the heavy parts in The Prodigal Parson, Voices of London, and The World’s Desire. A short tour as Major Fulton, in The Girl of My Heart, under Messrs Jones and Stillwell, preceded his present engagement. For the past fifteen months he has been playing with great success the leaving heavy part of Duburg, in Judy, under Mr Geo. Kirk. Mr Wallace has also written several dramas, including The Village Blacksmith.

(The Era, 21st May 1904)