Charles Rogers - A King of Nowhere
- well, at least that's the name of a production he was in (and potentially stage managed).
A King of Nowhere was a production staged in 1916 at the Maxine Elliott and Thirty Ninth Street theaters in Manhattan, and it was produced by The Garrick Company. It was a fictional romantic comedy about the court of King Henry VIII, and starred the famous actor Lou Tellegen (who, if you haven't already heard of him, was also a pretty fascinating guy!) as Godric, a celtic knight and prisoner of war. Lou was also a director of the play, alongside Jessie Bonstelle.
Charlie was cast in this production as John Skinner, who is depicted in this play as the gardener at Hampton Court Palace. This production is also the first time we professionally hear anything about a very talented young actress called Irene Bell (who was actually at this time already Mrs Irene Rogers), who was playing Mistress Eleanor Courtenay.
We're not sure exactly when and how Charlie and Irene met, and there's no marriage record that we've been able to find to give us any precise pointers - but official records we have found tell us that they had been married and living together since at least 1915. It appears there was also a baby Rogers on the scene (aww)! Irene would later be a member of Charlie's vaudeville team (more on this to come) and would remain married to Charlie until her tragically young passing due to health complications in 1939.
We also sadly don't have a definitively identified picture of Irene - we know she's somewhere in the official photographs of this production, but we have no idea which lady she actually is in the group pictures - or which man Charlie is, for that matter. The production photographs can be viewed here on the NYPL website if you'd like to take a gander - I think the set and costumes for this one look gorgeous!
If any private collectors, researchers, or relatives happen to know of any pictures of Irene, please let us know - we would really love to see them!
Theatre Progamme for A King of Nowhere (Holly's collection)
The next interesting tidbit about this production is that Charlie, as well as starring in the production itself, may also have been the Stage Manager. This could of course just be another Charles Rogers, but Charlie does have a very interesting and diverse career history in theatre work (more on this to come too) and it is...a bit of a coincidence to have two people called Charles Rogers working on the same production, to say the least.
We're aware of a couple of collections and archives that may be able to tell us some more about this, so we'll be getting in contact and making some inquiries to determine for sure whether or not this is the same Charles Rogers.
As always, thanks so much for reading and if you ever have any questions, suggestions, or facts you'd like to share about Charlie, or any other Roach writers or staff, please feel free to comment or send us an email at roachwriters@gmail.com. We're always happy to hear from fellow enthusiasts!
Written and researched by Holly Foskett
***Also, as a footer - a couple of people have contacted us to say it's Charley, not Charlie - however, Charley actually seems to be a common misspelling of his name, as we've only ever actually seen Rogers sign his own name with an 'ie'. We'd prefer to use this spelling since it's what we feel he would probably prefer, but regardless thanks to those who wanted to give us a heads up! We appreciate seeing other people fighting in Rogers' corner as much as we do! ☺
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