Франсис С. Шанфро: Американдық актер және театр директоры

American actor and theatre manager

Francis S. Chanfrau (1824 – October 2, 1884) was an American actor and theatre manager in the 19th century. He began his career playing bit parts and doing impressions of star actors such as Edwin Forrest and of ethnic groups. In 1848, he appeared as a Bowery b'hoy named Mose in A Glance at New York. The play became a record breaking hit, due largely to the Mose character, and Chanfrau spent most of the rest of his career playing that role. In later life, Chanfrau appeared regularly in Kit, the Arkansas Traveller and Sam. His wife, Henrietta, was a well known actress who usually performed under the name Mrs. F. S. Chanfrau.

Chanfrau was born to French parents in New York City; he grew up near Essex Market. As a boy, Chanfrau saw a performance by Edwin Forrest and decided to become an actor himself. Various legends arose during his career to explain his later choice of roles. One, related by T. Allston Brown, claims that in his youth Chanfrau frequented a small restaurant called the Broadway House on the corner of Grand Street, where he would order a daily plate of corned beef for six pence. One day, a printer at the New York Sun named Mose Humphrey sat down by him and yelled out his order: "Look a heah! gim me a sixpenny plate ev pork and beans, and don't stop to count dem beans, d'yr heah!" Chanfrau would later adopt this persona of the Irish Bowery b'hoy and popularize it on stage. Another version, related by A. E. Costello, says that Chanfrau witnessed Mose Humphreys in a street brawl:

At the crisis of their little difficulty, when victory appeared somewhat uncertain on whose gladiatorial arm to perch, a handsome bright eyed lad of twelve ran quickly out of Alvord's hat store, in which he had acted as clerk, and nimbly mounting an awning post, shouted down to one of the combatants, who had just then pressed his antagonist backward over the tongue of 40's engine, and was pounding him very industriously, "Give it to him, Hen; Julia is looking at you from the window! Don't choke him; give him a chance to holler enough!" This nimble and encouraging youngster was Frank Chanfrau; and Mose Humphreys, who presently chorussed Frank's advice with a hearty acknowledgment of defeat, was to suggest to the then comedian in embryo a type of character which won him a double fortune and an enduring fame. Whatever the ultimate source of his fireboy impression, Chanfrau was a gifted impersonator from a young age. He took the stage as a young man doing an impersonation of Forrest and a string of minor roles while touring from theatre to theatre with various companies. Brown says that he "played every dialect known to the stage, except the Welsh." Chanfrau became a member of the house company at Mitchell's Olympic Theatre in 1848. There, a friend and playwright, Benjamin A. Baker, wrote A Glance at New York. The play is a collection of jokes, short skits, songs, and other scenes centered on a country bumpkin from Connecticut who is guided through New York by Chanfrau's fireboy character. The two proposed it to Mitchell, the theatre manager, but he rejected it.

In 1848, Baker had a benefit at Mitchell's Olympic and asked Chanfrau to do his part from A Glance at New York in the afterpiece. Brown relates that "Mitchell used to tell how he went on the stage that night just before the curtain was rung up, and seeing Chanfrau at the back, dressed for his part, was on the point of ordering him off, supposing he was one of the 'Centre Market loafers.'" Chanfrau's huge popularity as Mose prompted William Northall to lament that at the Olympic

the boxes no longer shone with the elite of the city; the character of the audience was entirely changed, and Mose, instead of appearing on the stage, was in the pit, the boxes, and the gallery. It was all Mose, and the respectability of the house mosed too. W. Olgivie Ewen leased the larger Chatham Theatre for Chanfrau to manage beginning 28 February 1848. Chanfrau changed the name to Chanfrau's National Theatre and allowed working class patrons to sit in all sections of the playhouse, not just the pit as was customary. Chanfrau acted in a number of melodramas and burlesques with a concentration on Mose plays. Meanwhile, New York as It Is broke all records for New York theatre, playing for 47 nights straight and becoming the most popular play in the United States to that point. Chanfrau retained Chatham's lease until 8 July 1850. For one week during 1849, Chanfrau performed A Glance at New York in two New York theatres and one in Newark every day. He performed the early evening performance at the Chatham then went to the Olympic Theatre, New York for another performance and then head nine miles to Newark in a horse and buggy for a third performance. Chanfrau began touring widely, starred as Mose at a number of working class theatres. The Mose series expanded to include Mose in China, Mose in California, The Mystery and Miseries of New York, and many others. David Renear estimates that Chanfrau appeared as Mose at least 385 times in seven plays between 15 April 1848 and 6 July 1860. Meanwhile, other actors tried to cash in on the Mose fad, and Bowery b'hoy dramas appeared on stages across the United States. In 1850 the illustrator, Thomas Butler Gunn, drew and designed a graphic novel call Mose Among the Britishers or The B'hoy in London featuring the popular character. Gunn dedicated the work to Chanfrau.

Frank Chanfrau died at Taylor's Hotel in Jersey City, New Jersey, on October 2, 1884.