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Samuel Foote

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Playwright

The Resume

    (January 27, 1720-October 21, 1777)
    Born in Truro, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
    Dramatist, actor, and manager of the Haymarket Theatre
    Wrote the plays 'The Knights' (1748), 'Taste' (1752), 'An Englishman in Paris' (1753), 'The Englishman Returned from Paris' (1956), 'The Author' (1757), 'Tragedy a la Mode' (1760), 'The Nabob' (1772), and 'A Trip to Calais' (1777)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was forced to leave Oxford without a degree after repeatedly cutting classes in Latin and Greek.
    He inherited a fortune from an uncle, blew it on high living, and ended up in debtors' prison (1742).
    When he first took over the Haymarket, he lacked a license to present plays to the public. He got around this restriction by serving tea and chocolates to the audience, then claiming he was charging the audience for their refreshments while the play was being staged for free.
    He specialized in thinly veiled caricatures of public figures.
    He entered into a number of feuds, the most serious being one with actor Henry Woodward that eventually led to a riot outside the Haymarket.
    Encyclopedia Britannica wrote, 'Foote was undoubtedly a man of many talents, but he employed them only in savage attacks on others.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    When his acting mentor, Charles Macklin, boasted he could memorize any text after reading it once, Foote composed the following to test him: 'So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.'
    In addition to stumping Macklin, the passage introduced two phrases to the English language: 'no soap' to indicate a failure, and 'Grand Panjandrum' for an important (or self-important) person.
    He had to have a leg amputated after being thrown from his horse while riding with Prince Edward, King George III's younger brother (1766).
    He resumed acting and mocked his own misfortune in two plays, 'The Devil on Two Sticks' (1768) and 'The Lame Lover' (1770).
    His fans included Samuel Johnson ('For a broad laugh, I must confess the scoundrel has no equal') and Edward Gibbon ('When I am tired of the Roman Empire, I can laugh away an evening at Foote's theatre').

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying