Henry Hallam

Henry Hallam (August 7, 1850 – November 11, 1921) was a British-born operatic tenor and early film actor who began his five decade career singing on stage in England and then Australia and on tour in Australasia and India. He later appeared in silent films in the United States. Early career He was born as Henry Samuel Hallam Mayer in Clerkenwell in London in 1850, one of four children born to Elizabeth née Williams and Martin Mayer, a furrier of 8 Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane. He studied singing with Joseph Robinson in Liverpool before commencing a professional career as a teenage burlesque performer. After a brief time in London Hallam sailed to Melbourne in Australia where from 1870 to 1872 he embarked on a successful singing career touring with the Royal English Opera Company, on one occasion being described as 'a young gentleman with a very pretty, very light tenor voice, extremely smooth and pleasing to the ear’. During this period he appeared with Alice May, Armes Beaumont and Fanny Simonsen, among others. His first operatic role was in 1871 when he sang Tonio in an act of The Daughter of the Regiment before singing in The Messiah in Melbourne at Christmas 1871. Australasia In 1872 Hallam joined the Simonsen opera company for whom he sang Fritz in The Grande-Duchesse of Gérolstein and Manuel in The Rose of Castille. He appeared in 'Operatic Concerts' in Sydney before joining the music hall performer Harry Rickards with whom he toured Australia and New Zealand, singing ballads between Rickards' comic turns. In 1873 Hallam left Rickards and tried his hand at stockbroking but on losing all his money he returned to what he knew best - singing and performing, to which he added teaching. He appeared with the Alice May Opera Company and in November 1873 married the Launceston-born actress Mary Harriet Langmaid (1846–1874), who was a popular performer on stage in Sydney as 'Hattie Shepparde'.