George Grossmith Jr. was an English actor, theatre producer and manager, director, playwright and songwriter, best remembered for his work in and with Edwardian musical comedies. Grossmith was also an important innovator in bringing "cabaret" and "revues" to the London stage. Born in London, he took his first role on the musical stage at the age of 18 in Haste to the Wedding (1892), a West End collaboration between his famous songwriter and actor father and W. S. Gilbert.
Grossmith (right), with Edmund Payne in 1907
Grossmith and Phyllis Dare in The Sunshine Girl
with Emmy Wehlen in The Girl on the Film
Grossmith onstage at the Gaiety Theatre
Edwardian musical comedy was a form of British musical theatre that extended beyond the reign of King Edward VII in both directions, beginning in the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following the First World War.
The Geisha was a popular Edwardian musical comedy
George Edwardes
Phyllis Dare in The Arcadians
Souvenir program cover, 1900