Matheson Lang

Matheson Alexander Lang moved to England and made his first stage appearance in 1897 when he was 18-years-old. Before forming his own theatre company, he acted with the companies of Sir Frank Benson, Lillie Langtry, and Ellen Terry. In his early career he toured the United States and the West Indies; after his success in 1908 in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, he toured South Africa, Australia, and Asia, where his company played Shakespeare with great success. In 1914 he and his wife Hutin Britton inaugurated productions of The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice – which was made into a movie in 1916 – and Hamlet at the Old Vic. He made a relatively small number of films and is mostly remembered for his role as Mr.Wu in 1921. When he wrote his autobiography in 1940 it was titled Mr. Wu Looks Back.

The image of Matheson Lang and the 1921 original poster for Carnival were scanned from an originals in the Northernstars™ Collection.