Charles Francis Coghlan (11 June 1842 – 27 November 1899) was an Anglo-Irish actor and playwright once popular on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
He was elected to The Lambs in 1877 or 1878, nearly a charter member.
Charles F. Coghlan was born on 11 June 1842, in Paris to British subjects, Francis (sometimes spelled Frances) and Amie Marie (née Ruhly) Coghlan. His father, a native of Dublin, was the founder of Coghlan’s Continental Dispatch and publisher of Coghlan’s Continental Guides, and counted among his friends, Charles Dickens, Charles Reade, and other literary figures of the day. Amie Coghlan was born on the English Channel Island of Jersey sometime around 1821. Charles Coghlan was later raised in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Hull, Yorkshire and though originally groomed for a career in law he had chosen instead to be an actor whilst still in his teens.
Charles Coghlan began his stage career in 1859 as a minor player with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre’s summer tour. During their engagement in Dublin, Ireland Coghlan approached John Baldwin Buckstone, then manager of the Haymarket Theatre, with a play he had written. Buckstone passed on the play, but instead gave him the chance to play Monsieur Mafoi, a small role in “The Pilgrim of Love” a play adapted by Lord Byron from Irving’s “Legends of the Alhambra” that opened at the Haymarket on 9 April 1860. Over the following few seasons Coghlan would play a number of supporting roles that steadily increased his stature as an actor. In 1868 he played Charles Surface in Sheridan’s “School for Scandal” at the St James’s Theatre and later that year played Sir Oscar opposite Adelaide Neilson in Marston’s “Life for Life” at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Coghlan would remain with Prince of Wales over the next seven or eight seasons playing leading roles such as Geoffrey Delamayn in Collins’ “Man and Wife” and Harry Speadbrow in Gilbert’s Sweethearts.
In 1876 Augustin Daly brought Coghlan to America where he would spend the greater balance of his career. He made his Broadway debut on 12 September 1876, at the Fifth Avenue Theater, as Alfred Evelyn in Lord Lytton’s “Money” and was an instant success. Two months later, at the same venue, Coghlan played Orlando opposite Fanny Davenport’s Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The next season Coghlan was engaged as the leading man at the Union Square Theater, where he played Jean Remind during the successful run of Augustus R. Cazauran’s The Celebrated Case. He returned to London in 1881 to play Col. Woods, U.S.A. in the long-running “The Colonel” produced at the Prince of Wales. On 13 December 1890 Coughlan was declared bankrupt. He had liabilities of £315.
The pinnacle of Coghlan’s near twenty-five-year career in America came on 2 December 1898, at the Fifth Avenue Theater in his own adaptation of the Dumas’ play Kean titled The Royal Box, in which he played the part of the actor Clarence. This great success was tempered the following year by the failure of his play “Citizen Pierre”, in which he made his last New York performance. During his career Coghlan had played opposite his sister, Rose Coghlan, and in support of Lillie Langtry and Minnie Maddern Fiske. His last appearance on the stage was at Houston, Texas, on 28 October 1899, as Clarence in “The Royal Box”.
Coghlan died in Galveston, Texas, on 27 November 1899, after a month’s illness. He had originally come to the city with his company to perform “The Royal Box”, but his illness prevented him from ever taking the stage. His body was temporarily placed in a metal casket and stored in a vault at a local cemetery to await further family instructions. At first it was decided his remains would be interred on his farm in Fortune Bridge near the eastern tip of Prince Edward Island. Coghlan had sometime earlier purchased the property as a summer home and for his eventual retirement. Several days after his death, it was announced through the press that his remains would be returned to New York for cremation.
Nearly a year later the disposition of the body had yet to be decided and, in the interim, his casket was swept away from its resting place by a storm surge generated from the deadly Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The New York Actors Club had, for several years, a standing reward for anyone who recovered Coghlan’s coffin. In January 1904 a metal coffin was found in a marsh; at first it was thought to have been Coghlan’s. However it proved to be the remains of a New York man.
Coghlan’s coffin/remains was eventually found in January 1907 by a group of hunters who discovered it partially submerged in a marsh some nine miles from Galveston along the east coast of mainland Texas.
Following his death, in 1901, Coghlan’s sister, Rose, appeared at Denver, Colorado’s, Elitch Theatre in the world premiere of Coghlan’s Fortune’s Bridge. Rose stated that “my particular reason for coming to Denver was to produce my brother’s play — the one he finished just before his death. It’s called Fortune’s Bridge, but he didn’t give it the name.” Rose explained that the manuscript was sent to a typist and at the end her brother signed it and added his Canadian address: “Charles Coghlan, Fortune’s Bridge.” Apparently the typist moved it to the head of the first page and typed, “Fortune’s Bridge, by Charles Coghlan.” Rose stated “the name seemed to fit the play so well I allowed it to stand.”