Allan Aynesworth

English actor and producer

Edward Henry Abbot Anderson (14 April 1864, Sandhurst, Berkshire – 22 August 1959, Camberley, Surrey), known professionally as Allan Aynesworth, was an English actor and producer. His career spanned more than six decades, from 1887 to 1949, and included the role of Algernon Moncrieff in the 1895 premiere of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Aynesworth generally appeared in drawing room comedy and contemporary high society dramas, usually avoiding old classics and modern plays about social problems. He retired from the stage in 1938, and made his final acting appearance in the film The Last Days of Dolwyn in 1949.

Aynesworth was born at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, the third son of Major General Edward Abbot Anderson and his first wife, Martha, née Birkett, who died the day after Aynesworth was born. The eldest son, John Henry, followed his father into the army, and rose to be a Brigadier General; the middle son, William Maurice, entered the medical profession and became physician to the Princess Royal. Aynesworth attended Chatham House Grammar School, and was then sent to France and Germany to complete his education. After returning to England, Aynesworth resolved to pursue a theatrical career, and made his stage debut in April 1887 as an uncredited extra in The Red Lamp by Outram Tristram, produced by and starring Herbert Beerbohm Tree. He then went as a student to Sarah Thorne's theatre at Margate, before returning to London in November 1887, when he played a small role in a blank verse tragedy, The Witch, at the St James's Theatre. The Standard observed, "Mr. A. E. Aynesworth spoke the few lines allotted to him with distinction". In March 1888 Aynesworth played in a short lived piece, To the Death, written by and starring Rutland Barrington. before rejoining the company at the St James's the following month, under the management of John Hare and William Kendal; he played General de Pontac in a revival of The Ironmaster by Arthur Pinero.

During 1890–1892 Aynesworth played a series of roles at the Court Theatre: George Liptott in The Weaker Sex; Lord St John Brompton in Aunt Jack; the Hon Brooke Twombley in The Cabinet Minister; the Hon Gilbert Stukeley in The Volcano; and Richard Webb in The Late Lamented. After appearing at the Avenue, Globe, Criterion, Daly's and Garrick Theatres, during 1883–1884, Aynesworth joined George Alexander's company at the St James's, where he played Algernon Moncrieff in the first production of The Importance of Being Earnest. He recalled that Wilde attended only one rehearsal, and then called the cast together and told them that he had just witnessed "a play that reminded him slightly of one that he'd written", but that the similarity ended there. Despite the author's reservations, the play was enthusiastically received when it opened on 14 February 1895. Looking back in the 1940s, Aynesworth told the journalist and biographer Hesketh Pearson, "In my fifty three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night." The role of Algernon brought him to wider public notice than before, "[he] catches the right vein of grave extravagance";

Later in 1895 Alexander led the St James's company on tour, and in September they played a command performance of the comedy drama Liberty Hall for Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle. From 1903 to 1907 he established a fruitful stage partnership with Marie Tempest in a series of long running plays, mostly at the Comedy Theatre, but with one excursion to New York to play The Freedom of Suzanne at the Empire Theatre. At the Duke of York's Theatre in February 1912 Aynesworth appeared as Captain Nicholas Jeyes in Pinero's The "Mind the Paint" Girl, after which he went into management for the first time, presenting and starring in Ready Money at the New Theatre, which ran for more than 200 performances.|
The following year Aynesworth had another characteristic success in The Dover Road by A. A. Milne, playing "the tremendous butler, Dominic an unbelievably grand creature". The Play Pictorial praised "a masterly study of humorous exposition, and every effect is obtained without apparent effort". In the 1930s Aynesworth continued to appear in West End plays. His Lord Porteus attracted enthusiastic reviews when The Circle was revived in 1931. Aynesworth's last stage role was Lord Conyngham in Laurence Housman's Victoria Regina. The Times commented "it is the wit and authority of Mr Allan Aynesworth's Conyngham that here makes all else seem a trifle amateurish", The play ran for 337 performances, after which Aynesworth retired from theatre performance. The Times summed up his career:
He acted in 25 London theatres, most frequently at the Haymarket and the St. James's; and he took part in plays written by over 50 contemporary dramatists. He never appeared in anything by Shaw (though for a while he rehearsed a part in You Never Can Tell) or Granville Barker, for his interest was centred in the comedy of character and he was not sympathetic to the drama of ideas. His favourite part was Charles Surface, which gives a nice indication of his general outlook. He had worked with almost every eminent actor and actress of his day, and appeared before Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, King George V and Queen Mary, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Aynesworth died at his home in Camberley at the age of 95.