Dion Boucicault

(alias Lee Morton)

Shakespeare's good in bits but for colour and stir give me Bouicault.

(O'Casey)

• Born in Ireland in 1820, the son of a French refugee and an Irish mother, Boucicault presents an interesting and driven figure. Not only was he a prolific playwright and actor but was also responsible for establishing the idea of 'copyright' for dramatists in America. He was the first to receive a royalty for his plays replacing the idea of the flat fee that was so popular in his time. He wrote over 200 plays in his time, many of them witty and controversial.

• He married twice, his first wife Agnes Robertson was a actress of some note herself. Three children, Dion, Aubrey and Nina also entered the acting profession. He died in New York in 1890.

• His area of specialty lay in melodrama and many of his plays were turned into films but with the arrival of 'realistic' writers such as Ibsen, Zola, Strindberg and Shaw, his work lost the supremacy it once commanded.

• Part of the reason for his theatrical decline some suggest is to do with the fact he cared little about whom he offended and because of this, he made many enemies.

• Until he knew he would be successful, he called himself Lee Morton and it was during this time that he also took to the stage as an actor himself.

• At 20, he became an immediate success with his play London Assurance which was performed at Coven Garden on March 4 1841.

• Some of his most notable successful plays include Old Head and Young Hearts, The Corsican Brothers, Colleen Bawn, The Octoroon, The Poor of New York

• Made his first acting appearance in a play called The Vampire

• In 1875 he made New York his home but made occasional trips to London where he appeared in his last play The Jilt in 1886.