It Led Him from His Native London,
Through Canada, and Finally to the
Old Lyceum Stock Company.
Henry Miller was born in London, but brought up in Canada. He was only a
schoolboy when he chanced to read a magazine article about Henry Irving.
This fired him with the ambition to act, but he set about realizing it in
a most matter-of-fact and sensible way.
Instead of running off to join some theatrical troupe as a super, he began
the study of elocution under the late W.C. Couldock, best remembered
perhaps as the worthy miller, father of _Hazel Kirke_. This was at
Miller's home, in Toronto, and here he had four years of grounding in the
text of Shakespeare.
He was barely nineteen when the chance came, at a Toronto theater, for him
to show what his studying had taught him. He was assigned to the part of
the bleeding _Sergeant_ in "Macbeth," and the very fact that the company
was merely a scratch affair, not far removed from the barnstorming
category, really worked to young Miller's advantage.
He was the first leading man with the old Lyceum stock, in "The Wife," and
the second at the Empire. In 1899, he expressed his greatest ambition as
being the management of a New York theater. This he has realized the past
winter at the Princess, where he organized and produced "Zira" for Miss
Anglin.