(b London, 9 Dec 1847; d Folkestone, 1 March 1912). English actor, singer, composer and writer, father of george Grossmith (ii). He was a courtroom reporter and comic recitalist, like his father of the same name, before becoming a drawing-room entertainer: he was sometimes called ‘G.G. II’, to distinguish him from his father, or ‘G.G.’. He began a 12-year association with the Gilbert and Sullivan Savoy operas when he made his stage début in the title role of The Sorcerer in 1877. Of slight stature, with excellent diction, dapper footwork and a light comic touch, he created what became known as the patter parts or the ‘Grossmith roles’. In 1889 he resumed his lucrative Humorous and Musical Recitals, touring in England and America.
According to contemporary accounts he was not much of a singer, but his own songs display a wider tessitura than the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory suggests. He was the author of and often a performer in eight operettas, nearly 100 musical sketches and some 400 songs and piano pieces. This prolific song output was mostly in a patter style, with an infectious melody and a syllabic setting for fast delivery: a third of them were published and survive, but his manuscripts along with his performing librettos from the Savoy operas were destroyed in World War II. His songs are couched in quotidian detail: London streets and their surly cab drivers and bus conductors, seedy lodging houses, obstreperous babies, and fashionable dances as in See me dance the polka and See me reverse. They especially describe the trials of the entertainer, and they parody popular genres such as the revivalist hymn and coon songs and also the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. His persona was often that of the lover-manqué, deflating romantic aspiration, and the same quirky observations of suburban hopes and frustrations informed the fictional character of Charles Pooter, whose spoof diary, co-written with Grossmith’s brother, the actor Weedon Grossmith, was serialized in Punch and published as The Diary of a Nobody (New York and London, 1892/R; many later editions).
Grossmith’s last three stage appearances, in His Excellency (1894), His Majesty (1897) and The Gay Pretenders (1900, with both book and lyrics by his son), failed to capture the public taste and, through a combination of illness, exhaustion and nervousness, he retired.
(selective list)
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Operettas: Cups and Saucers (G. Grossmith), 1876; Uncle Samuel (A. Law), 1881; Mr Guffin’s Elopement (Law), 1882; A Peculiar Case (Law), 1884; The Great Taykin (Law), 1885; The Real Case of Hide and Seekyll (Grossmith), 1886; Haste to the Wedding (W.S. Gilbert), 1892; Castle Bang (Grossmith), 1894 |
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Songs: The Gay Photographer (Grossmith), 1870; I am so volatile (Grossmith), 1871; The Muddle-Puddle Porter, 1877; An Awful Little Scrub, 1880; The Speaker’s Eye, 1882; The Bus Conductor’s Song, 1883; How I Became an Actor, 1883; See me reverse, 1884; The Lost Key, 1885; See me dance the polka, 1886; The Happy Fatherland, 1887; Thou, of My Thou, 1889; The French Verbs, 1890; Go on talking – don’t mind me!, 1892; I don’t mind flies, 1892; The Society Nigger, 1892; The Baby on the Shore, 1893; Johnnie at the Gaiety, 1895; Tommy’s First Love, 1897; The Happy Old Days at Peckham, 1903 |
G. Grossmith: A Society Clown (Bristol and London, 1888)
G. Grossmith: The Geo. Grossmith Birthday Book: Being a Collection of Quotations from his Original Works – Musical and Otherwise (Bristol, 1904)
G. Grossmith: Piano and I (Bristol and London, 1910)
W. Grossmith: From Studio to Stage (London, 1913) [autobiography]
T. Joseph: George Grossmith: a Biography of a Savoyard (Bristol, 1982)
LEON BERGER