English actor-manager, playwright, and poet laureate
Colley Cibber
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
In office 3 December 1730 – 12 December 1757
Monarch
George II
Preceded by
Laurence Eusden
Succeeded by
William Whitehead
Personal details
Born
(1671-11-06)6 November 1671 Southampton Street, London, England
Died
11 December 1757(1757-12-11) (aged 86) Berkeley Square, London, England
Parent
Caius Gabriel Cibber (father)
Occupation
Actor, theatre manager, playwright, poet
Known for
Works include his autobiography and several comedies of historical interest Appointed Poet Laureate in 1730
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757[1]) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière [and] hapless Shakespeare".
He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did not sit well with his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, shady business methods, and a social and political opportunism that was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame when he became the chief target, the head Dunce, of Alexander Pope's satirical poem The Dunciad.
Cibber's poetical work was derided in his time and has been remembered only for being poor. His importance in British theatre history rests on his being one of the first in a long line of actor-managers, on the interest of two of his comedies as documents of evolving early 18th-century taste and ideology, and on the value of his autobiography as a historical source.
^Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cibber, Colley" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 351.
ColleyCibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir An Apology for the...
Gabriel Cibber (1630–1700) was a Danish sculptor, who enjoyed great success in England, and was the father of the actor, author and poet laureate Colley Cibber...
Theophilus Cibber (25 or 26 November 1703 – October 1758) was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager ColleyCibber. He began...
champions of all things insipid, Lewis Theobald (1728 and 1732) and ColleyCibber (1742). Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, who wrote a biting commentary on Pope's...
Cibber is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: Caius Gabriel Cibber, Danish sculptor; father of ColleyCibber Charlotte Cibber, English...
Vanbrugh and Farquhar. Lowe, Robert William; Cibber, Colley (1889). An apology for the life of Mr. ColleyCibber. London: Charles Whittingham and Co. p. 338...
name, "Mrs. Charlotte Charke", and identified her as the daughter of ColleyCibber. After being unsuccessful in a series of jobs associated with men at...
Relapse around particular actors at the Drury Lane Theatre, including ColleyCibber, who played Lord Foppington. A fop is also referred to as a "beau",...
An Apology for the Life of ColleyCibber is a memoir by the British playwright, actor-manager and current Poet Laureate published in 1740. Popular with...
John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to ColleyCibber's Love's Last Shift, or, The Fool in Fashion. In Cibber's Love's Last Shift, a free-living Restoration...
fight back. The company owners, wrote the young United Company employee ColleyCibber, "had made a monopoly of the stage, and consequently presum'd they might...
even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of ColleyCibber, though he declined. Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London. His father...
Catherine Cibber, born Katherine Shore (baptised 1669 – 17 January 1734), was a British singer and actor. She was called Mrs ColleyCibber and the "greatest...
Caesar in Egypt is a 1724 tragedy by the British writer ColleyCibber. It is inspired by Pierre Corneille's 1642 French play The Death of Pompey about...
he added a fourth book and changed the hero from Lewis Theobald to ColleyCibber. In the fourth book of the new Dunciad, Pope expressed the view that...
2000, p. 235. Ashley, L. R. N. (1965), ColleyCibber, New York: Twayne p. 17 Barker, R. H. (1939), Mr Cibber of Drury Lane, New York: Columbia University...
the English writer ColleyCibber. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 7 December 1704. The original cast featured Cibber as Lord Foppington...
2011. Tom Dale Keever (18 December 1995). "Richard III as rewritten by ColleyCibber". Primary Texts and Secondary Sources On-line. Richard III Society—American...
and her court. Oldfield became one of Drury Lane's leading actresses. ColleyCibber acknowledged that she had as much as he to do with the success of his...
Provoked Husband is a 1728 comedy play by the British writer and actor ColleyCibber, based on a fragment of play written by John Vanbrugh. It is also known...
town. Scholars argue whether a more important writer of the genre was ColleyCibber, an actor-manager, writer, and poet laureate who wrote the first sentimental...
No Fury" Jack Whitman ColleyCibber & Paul Savage January 14, 1984 (1984-01-14) 11.5 13 "Deadline" Lee H. Katzin ColleyCibber & Paul Savage January 21...
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