William Evans Burton (1804-1860)

An extremely popular comic actor of extraordinary talent, Burton was also extremely successful, albeit ruthless, as a manager. Personally jealous and rather vindictive, he was a charming presence on the stage. William Winter said he was one of those actors "whose presence made an audience sweetly and comfortably glad."

Born in London, he tried his hand at his father's printing business briefly before joining a touring company in 1825. In 1831, he made his London debut at the Pavilion Theatre as Wormwood. He appeared as Marrall to Kean's Sir Giles Overreach. Coming to Philadelphia in the late 1830's, he debuted at the Arch Street Theatre. He made his debut in New York in 1837. He soon established himself as an audience favorite and in short order, was managing with himself as star. In Philadelphia he took over a building that had been used as a circus, renovated it and opened it successfully as a theatre.

He then moved to New York and took over Palmo's Opera House which had become a "variety" house, and after renovations opened it at Burton's Theatre in 1848. It quickly became the leading theatre in the city until Wallack's opened four years later. Burton's method was to use the best actors he could get and approach each production with the best scholarship available. His productions were elaborate and detailed. He remained at Burton's until he moved into the Metropolitan in a most ungracious takeover from the new rival Laura Keene.

His own best characters seemed to be Bottom, Sir Toby Belch, Falstaff, Autolycus (left) and Caliban in Shakespeare and Captain Cuttle, Bumble, Micawber, Squeers and Sam Weller in his own dramatizations made from Dickens.

His biographer, W. L. Keene, said of his acting, "His pictures from Dickens were careful studies, revealing fine sympathy and appreciation; his Shakespearean delineations were felicitous interpretations of the master's spirit. In the extravagance of farce it was impossible to be funnier than he was. Mirth came from him in exhalations."

Still his Tony Lumpkin was remembered by Charlotte Martin years after as "always excruciatingly funny, but there was no buffoonery in it." It is said that in the drunk scene in Toodles, he could keep an audience in hysterics for fifty minutes without speaking a line.

Still, the great clown was capable of serious conceptions as well. A Mrs. M. Sherwood, writing in the June 20, 1875 New York Times, remembered his Caliban: