Actor-manager, born in London, UK, the half-brother of Max Beerbohm. After a commercial education in Germany, he became an actor, took over the Haymarket Theatre (1887), and built His Majesty's Theatre (1897), where he rivalled Irving's productions at the Lyceum. He founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904, and scored a great success with the first production of Shaw's Pygmalion in 1914.
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (December 17, 1853 - July 2, 1917) was an English actor-manager.
Born in London, Tree was the second son of Julius Beerbohm, a Lithuanian born businessman of German descent, and Constantia Draper .
He married Helen Maud Holt (1863-1937), who acted as Lady Tree and often played opposite him, in 1882. Iris Tree, the poet and actress, and the actress Viola Tree were their daughters. Tree fathered several illegitimate children, including film director Carol Reed and Peter Reed, the father of actor Oliver Reed.
Tree directed and starred in the earliest surviving film of an excerpt from a Shakespearean play: King John in 1899.
He founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1904 and was knighted in 1909.
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