Robert Cochran Hilliard (May 28, 1857 – June 6, 1927) was an American stage actor. He was elected to The Lambs as a professional member on June 23, 1890. A popular matinee idol of his day, he was nicknamed “Handsome Bob.” Hilliard was considered the handsomest leading man of his era. He succeeded Lamb Maurice Barrymore as leading man to Lily Langtry.
Robert Hilliard was born on May 28, 1857 in New York. He entered acting after leaving the world of finance and brokerage houses in the Gilded Age.
Hilliard saw his heyday during the early 1890s, when his witty addresses from the stage won him countrywide fame. Broadway proudly pointed him out as its most popular leading man. He was spoken of by Lamb David Belasco, American roles in contrast to Yiddish and Irish immigrant parts for which David Warfield and Blanche Bates, respectively, were famous. In “The Girl of the Golden West,” in which he played the lead, is a play in which he was most likely be remembered by.
He retired for several years, but the stage was part him, and in the autumn of 1921 was back before the footlights. His last play was “The Littlest Girl,” written by himself from a story Richard Harding Davis. He was a writer and actor, known for the silent films The Avalanche (1915), The Ex-Convict (1904) and Artistic Interference (1916). Hilliard was married three times:
His third wife, Olga, was the daughter of millionaire James Everard, founder of Everard Breweries. When he died, he left her $2 million, which she brought to the marriage which Robert didn’t need because he was wealthy in his own right. Olga was 23 and Robert was 57 when they married.
His son with Cora Bell, Robert Bell Hilliard, was elected to The Lambs in 1905 as an Army/Navy member, when he was in the U.S. Navy. His sister, Carrie Hilliard, was married to Lambs Charter Member George W. Walker.
Robert Hilliard died on June 6, 1927 in New York. He was 70. He is interred in the family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.