Harry Woodruff (June 1, 1869 – October 6, 1916) began acting at nine and was a Lamb by 21. He was a stage actor with a range for light comedy, musicals, and Shakespeare.
Woodruff not only graduated from Harvard, he originated the role in the Broadway sensation Brown of Harvard (1906), where a replica of Harvard Yard with prop trees was built onstage. It was directed by Henry Miller at the Princess Theatre with Woodruff starring at Tom Brown. It toured the country for three years and when it played in Boston, several Harvard undergrads were arrested when they tried to break up the show.
Woodruff was elected to The Lambs in 1890 and by all accounts he was a beloved member. Woodruff was 21 when he joined the Club; making him one of the junior theatrical members who joined before going to college. He later served terms as Boy (vice president). He was featured in numerous Lambs’ Gambols.
Henry Mygatt Woodruff was born June 1, 1869, in Hartford, Connecticut, son of Samuel Vincent Woodruff and Emma Jane Coite. The family resided in Jersey City and Manhattan when Henry became a juvenile stage actor.
His stage debut was at age nine in the 1879 juvenile company of H.M.S. Pinafore.
Harry was soon in demand for boy’s parts, and appeared with a number of well-known actors, including several roles in Edwin Booth’s company. He took over the role of Ned, the cabin boy, in The Black Flag, an engagement lasting four years, playing the role nearly twelve hundred times. In the fall of 1887, he joined A. M. Palmer’s Stock at the Madison Square, with which he remained four years, then came a year spent traveling abroad.
Back from his travels, the season of 1891-92 saw him appear in scores of shows. Playwright Augustus Thomas, who joined The Lambs one year before Woodruff and would go onto become Shepherd, wrote a hit play that featured scores of club members. Alabama was set in the South, and Lambs’ started talking in Southern accents around the clubhouse. Woodruff was the juvenile lead, with veteran actors as Southern colonels including Shepherd E.M. Holland. It was a huge hit and it helped make Woodruff a recognized star in the early 1890s.
He followed these parts with Ye Earlie Troubles, His Wedding Day and The Girl I Left Behind Me. In 1893 Woodruff was in the first U.S. presentation of Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt playing the part of Charley Wykeham. Over time he showed his range in Shakespearen, musical comedy, drama, and farces.
After a season as Charley in Charley’s Aunt, Woodruff entered Harvard University, where he remained four years, graduating with the Class of 1898. He took breaks and leaves of absences for occasional roles, and he acted in student theatrical shows.
There were newspaper gossip columns at the time that the reason Woodruff entered Harvard was to keep him away from Anna Gould, the daughter and heiress of financier Jay Gould. The wealthy family wished for Woodruff to earn a law degree to be more respectable than an actor, even going to the lengths to pay for his education. It was all for nothing, as the young socialite was sent abroad and she married a wealthy French nobleman. Woodruff told friends later he should have eloped with Anna. He completed his education, returned to acting full time, and never married.
When Woodruff returned to New York from college, his career rocketed skyward. The new college graduate was part of the famous 1898 All-Star Lambs’ Gambol that took Pullman railcars around the East Coast to performances. With 100 Brother Lambs–including Nat Goodwin, DeWolf Hopper, Wilton Lackaye, and an orchestra led by Victor Herbert–the tour was a huge success.
In May 1901 Woodruff appeared in an all-star production of The Merchant of Venice at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Also appearing in the cast were Brother Lambs Maclyn Arbuckle, William Courtleigh, Nat Goodwin, and William Sampson.
When Klaw & Erlanger staged their spectacle Ben Hur (1903) it was Woodruff cast as Ben Hur at the New York Theatre and Stella Boniface Weaver as Amrah. For the remainder of the decade he performed opposite the leading ladies of the era, such as Isabelle Evesson, Anna Karenina; and Mrs. Fiske (Minnie Maddern) in Mary of Magdala.
When Actors’ Equity was formed in 1913, Woodruff was a charter member with scores of other Lambs. In 1915 Woodruff appeared in two silent films, A Man and His Mate and The Beckoning Flame. His silent movie career was cut short by illness.
Woodruff was also a member of the Harvard Club, Larchmont Yacht Club, and The Players.
For the last six months of Harry Woodruff’s life he suffered from Bright’s Disease, a historical classification of painful kidney disease. He was living at the Algonquin Hotel, just one block east of The Lambs’ clubhouse. He died in his suite on October 6, 1916. He was 47. Woodruff is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, final resting place of more than 100 Lambs.