{{short description|American actor and musician}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2019}} <!-- moved image to Infobox thumb|250px|Chauncey Olcott (1858-1932) & co-star, c. 1895 --> {{Infobox person | name = Chauncey Olcott | image = Chauncey Olcott, c. 1918.jpg | caption = | birth_name = John Chancellor Olcott | birth_date = {{Birth date|1858|7|21|mf=y}} | birth_place = Buffalo, New York, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1932|3|18|1858|7|21|mf=y}} | death_place = Monte Carlo, Monaco | awards = Songwriters Hall of Fame | image_size = | resting_place = Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City, United States | spouse = {{plainlist| * Cora Estell Henderson * Margaret O'Donovan }} }}

'''Chauncey Olcott''', born '''John Chancellor Olcott'''<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XloiAQAAMAAJ&q=chauncey+olcott The Green Book Magazine, page 519 and 521, Volume 9] Retrieved September 7, 2016</ref> and often spelled '''Chauncey Alcott''' (July 21, 1858 – March 18, 1932), was an American stage actor, songwriter and singer of Irish descent.<ref>{{cite book|author=Walter Brown & E. De Roy Koch|chapter=OLCOTT, Chauncy (John Chancellor)|title=Who's Who on Stage, 1908|location=NY|publisher=B. W. Dodge & Co|page=[https://archive.org/details/whoswhoonstage00browiala/page/333 333]|url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhoonstage00browiala}}</ref>

==Biography== He was born in Buffalo, New York. His mother, Margaret (née Doyle), was a native of Killeagh, County Cork.<ref>Axel Klein: "Olcott, Chauncey", in: ''The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland'', ed. by Harry White & Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), p. 775–76; {{ISBN|978-1-906359-78-2}}.</ref> [[File:Actor Chauncey Olcott, c. 1896.png|thumb|left|upright|Actor Chauncey Olcott, c. 1896, photo by W. M. Morrison]]In the early years of his career Olcott sang in minstrel shows, before studying singing in London during the 1880s. Lillian Russell played a major role in helping make him a Broadway star.<ref>One of his shows not listed in the IBDb database is ''Pepita; or, the Girl with the Glass Eyes''. See Welch, Deshler. [https://books.google.com/books?id=s-URAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA150 – ''The Theatre''], vol. 1, 1886, p. 150. Retrieved June 27, 2013; and Brown, Thomas Alston. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EzELAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA176 ''A History of the New York Stage''], 1903, p. 176. Retrieved June 27, 2013.</ref> When the producer Augustus Pitou approached him in 1893 to succeed William J. Scanlan as the leading tenor in sentimental operettas on Irish themes, Olcott accepted and performed pseudo-Irish roles for the remainder of his career.

Olcott combined the roles of tenor, actor, lyricist and composer in many productions. He wrote the complete scores to Irish musicals such as ''Sweet Inniscara'' (1897), ''A Romance of Athlone'' (1899), ''Garrett O'Magh'' (1901), and ''Old Limerick Town'' (1902). For other productions he collaborated with Ernest R. Ball and George Graff in works such as ''The Irish Artist'' (1894), ''Barry of Ballymore'' (1910), ''Macushla'' (1912), and ''The Isle o' Dreams'' (1913). There are some 20 such works between 1894 and 1920.<ref>Klein (2013), as above.</ref>

He was a good songwriter who captured the mood of his Irish-American audience by combining melodic and rhythmic phrases from traditional Irish music with melancholy sentiment. Some numbers from his musicals became popular, such as "My Wild Irish Rose" from ''A Romance of Athlone'', "Mother Machree" from ''Barry of Ballymore'', and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" from ''The Isle o' Dreams''. Sometimes he used tunes from others, such as that of the title song from ''Macushla'' from Irish composer Dermot Macmurrough (pseudonym of Harold R. White) or "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" by James Royce Shannon for his production ''Shameen Dhu'' (1914).<ref name="urlSHAMEEN DHU-PAE-loc">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.smor.19140202/default.html|title=SHAMEEN DHU [musical show]:Bibliographic Record Description|chapter=Shameen Dhu |encyclopedia=Performing Arts Encyclopedia|publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=December 18, 2014}}</ref>

In 1925, a serious illness forced him to retire, and he moved to Monte Carlo where he died of pernicious anemia in 1932. His body was brought home and interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

==Legacy== [[File:My-Wild-Irish-Rose-1947-1.jpg|thumb|Dennis Morgan as Chauncey Olcott and Andrea King as Lillian Russell in ''My Wild Irish Rose'' (1947)]] Olcott's life story was told in the 1947 Warner Bros. motion picture ''My Wild Irish Rose'' starring Dennis Morgan as Olcott. The film's plot was based on the biography by Olcott's widow, Rita Olcott, ''Song in His Heart'' (1939).<ref>"The screen play was based on the story written by Chauncey's widow, Rita Olcott, in her book, "Song in My [sic] Heart." (liner notes to 1947 RCA Victor album).</ref>

In 1970, Olcott was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

==Further reading== *Rita Olcott: ''Song in His Heart'' (New York: House of Field, Inc., 1939). *Mari Kathleen Fielder: "Chauncey Olcott: Irish-American Mother-Love, Romance and Nationalism", in: ''Éire-Ireland'' 22 (1987) no. 2, p.&nbsp;4–26. *William H.A. Williams: ''"'Twas Only an Irishman's Dream". The Image of the Irish and Ireland in American Popular Song Lyrics 1800–1920'' (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1996), {{ISBN|0-252-02246-7}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-252-06551-4}} (paperback).

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Portal|Biography}} {{commons category|Chauncey Olcott}} *{{IBDB name}} *{{Find a Grave|776}} * {{IMDb name|0646052|Chauncey Olcott}} *[https://archive.org/details/ChaunceyOlcott selected recordings of '''Chauncey Olcott'''] *[http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/sayre/searchterm/chauncey%20olcott/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/cosuppress/ Chauncey Olcott] portraits; University of Washington, Sayre collection *[http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=1037038&word= Chauncey Olcott] portraits; NY Public Library, Billy Rose collection *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120320073050/http://www.periodpaper.com/index.php/1910-chancellor-olcott-stage-actor-will-bradley-print Chauncey Olcott; PeriodPaper.com c. 1910] *{{ChoralWiki|Chauncey Olcott}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100430202538/http://www.carvingsforacause.com/olcott.htm ''Chauncey Olcott'' at Carving for a Cause] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304032322/http://vintagetheaterads.ecrater.com/p/6113799/1905-chauncey-olcott-magazine-cover-edmund Chauncey Olcott, cover THE THEATRE magazine October 1905] * [https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/107788 Chauncey Olcott recordings] at the Discography of American Historical Recordings. {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olcott, Chauncey}} Category:1858 births Category:1932 deaths Category:20th-century American male actors Category:Songwriters from New York (state) Category:Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York) Category:American vaudeville performers Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Male actors from Buffalo, New York Category:Singers from New York (state) Category:Members of The Lambs Club