English actor, born in Berkshire, and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. At the university he became prominent as an amateur actor in connection with the O.U.A.D.C., which he founded, and in 1889 he joined Mrs. Langtry as a professional. He also acted with Charles Wyndham at the Criterion, and was for a while in Daly’s company in America. In 1894 he married the actress Violet Vanbrugh, elder sister of the no less well-known actress Irene Vanbrugh, and he and his wife subsequently took the leading parts under his management of the Garrick theatre. Both as tragedian and comedian Mr. Bourchier took high rank on the London stage, and his career as actor-manager was remarkable for the production of a number of successful modern plays, by Mr. Sutro and others. He produced in 1910 Henry VIII. and Macbeth at the Garrick theatre, London, and in the same year joined Herbert Tree at His Majesty’s theatre, where both he and his wife played again in these and other Shakespeare plays. He also played Iago to Mr. Matheson Lang’s Othello in 1920. After the dissolution of his earlier marriage with Miss Violet Vanbrugh he married in 1918 Miss Kyrle Bellew, with whom he continued to appear in modern melodrama. He acted Old Bill in Capt. Bairnsfather’s war play The Better ’Ole (1917).
