Talk:J. C. Williamson

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The J. C. Williamson company was an extremely important theatrical production company for 100 years in Australasia, running sometimes several touring companies at once. This article mostly discusses the G&S aspects of Williamson, but its activities in presenting operetta, musicals and other theatre were extensive and deserve either their own article, or a major expansion of this article. Come on, Australians and theatre lovers, won't someone do the research to add in the Non-G&S side of this famous company? -- Ssilvers 01:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I have just finished an article on Tittell Brune, and thought that nobody had tackled JC Williamson. I started on him, then I found you'd done him, well sort of. I do feel that his G & S association is just one of his arms, and I do know that it helped start his career in Oz, but that it should either be treated as a sub heading, or dealt with separately. But if this article is left as is, it should have a different heading, not J.C. Williamson, and some of the non G&S detail should be deleted. And we can start fresh on JC beginning wih his beginning. Here's just a taste of his beginnings as a performer and comedian:

WILLIAMSON, JAMES CASSIUS (1845-1913), actor and theatrical manager, was born on 26 August 1845 in Mercer, Pennsylvania, son of a doctor, James Hezlep Williamson MD, and his wife Selina. About 1856 the family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where young James made a clandestine theatrical début in 1857. In 1861 he worked for a theatre company as call-boy, general assistant and scenery and props maker; next year he joined the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Toronto, and then moved on to New York where he found work as a dialect comedian. In 1871 he moved to San Francisco and met comedienne Margaret Virginia Sullivan, whom he married at St Mary's Cathedral on 2 February 1873. On 23 February they starred in Struck Oil, a sketchy script bought for $100 and rewritten by his friend Clay Greene, and performed in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Williamsons then visited Australia. . . . . . . .

What do you think is the solution, merge and adjust, or you fix yours with a different heading, and we, or just you (your encyclopedic research is better than mine), start over on JC with just a nod to your excellent JC & G&S coverage? JohnClarknew 06:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I added your new info into the article. Thanks! I then did a little research and added some more. This link provides some more info to work with: Article about formation of the J. C. Williamson companies. Meanwhile, we may as well leave the article all together like this until we have more non-G&S Williamson info. I'm not sure if we will need to separate out the G&S stuff. It depends how long the article gets.... -- Ssilvers 15:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking good! He sure was an interesting guy. Missing now is a nice picture at the top right. I happened to be in Sydney in late 1980's, and trying to track down Roy Redgrave, I spoke on the telephone with a very old lady in an old actors' home who had toured with him, for Williamson. I got as far as making a connection between Roy and Weir, his wife, and then she refused to discuss it further, maybe DNA problems were in the air. I got the impression that JC had trouble with his women, and that's why he left the country with her at the end. Good luck with your research. JohnClarknew 18:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)