Gerald Lawrence Hand Signed Antique Real Photo Postcard

PFAS203  This is an original antique hand signed postcard for historic Shakespeare actor and theatre director Gerald Lawrence who has personally autographed the souvenir where his signature rests perfectly accompanying his portrait - small corner impressions from former album storage - lightly aged and slight surface places otherwise great condition with the souvenir showing Gerald Lawrence in a production with Miss Fay Davis. It is franked 1907 on reverse indicative of the date of the autograph.,

"...Gerald Leslie Lawrence (23 March 1873 9 May 1957) was a British actor and manager.  Lawrence studied stagecraft with Frank Benson before founding his own Shakespearean company with William Haviland (1860-1917) - the Haviland and Lawrence Shakespearian & Dramatic Company - which during 1897 and 1898 toured South Africa where, among others, they performed Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. In the cast was Lawrence's wife Lilian Braithwaite, whom he had married shortly before the tour.

He joined Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in juvenile roles and acted in Sardou's Dante (1903) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He was playing Henry II on the night Irving made his last appearance as Becket in Tennyson's play in 1905. Lawrence then travelled to America, and returning to Great Britain in 1909 he directed a number of Shakespeare's plays at the Royal Court Theatre and Her Majesty's Theatre including Twelfth Night (1909),[9] A Midsummer Night's Dream,  Henry VIII and The War God (1911).

In 1912 he gave an outstanding performance in the title role in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion. At the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre he played Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice (1914), Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing (1914), Orsino in Twelfth Night; (1914), and Orlando in As You Like It (1914)..."