John Stanger Heiss OscarAsche, better known as OscarAsche (26 January 1871–23 March 1936), was an Australian actor, director and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals.
Asche was educated at the Melbourne Grammar School which he left at the age of 16.
Asche was a good athlete and a fair cricketer and played for the M.C.C. against minor counties.
Kismet’s success spurred OscarAsche to produce, write and direct Chu Chin Chow, engaging Frederic Norton to write the music.
Asche also played the lead role of Abu Hasan, leader of the forty thieves (the "Chu Chin Chow" of the title is an alias of the robber chief).
Theatre journal The Era said that Norton's music had "a touch of the East but for the most part it was on a level with the tender melody of musical comedy" and "hardly inspired".
OscarAsche based his musical Chu Chin Chow on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Asche’s deal with Henry Dana, manager of His Majesty’s Theatre, was that he would take a small percentage fee, which would go up if the show took £50,000 (nearly £1m today) in the first 20 weeks.
But Asche was an inveterate gambler and by 1926 he was bankrupt.
John OscarAsche was born in Australia and first appeared on stage in 1893; his resonant voice and his dignified, formal bearing are often mentioned in the reviews of his performances.
Asche and Miss Brayton inscribed their names in the record book in 1916.
OscarAsche wrote a play entitled Chu-Chin-Chow in which he played the lead, Abu Hasan.
His principal creditor was the Inland Revenue, though Asche stated that he had paid many thousands a year for years whenever a demand was made.
His interesting autobiography, OscarAsche his Life, must be read with caution whenever figures are mentioned.
It would perhaps be going too far to call Asche a great actor, but it may at least be said that he was a thoroughly good actor who had his great moments.
My father, David Asche was born in 1931 in Hong Kong, where his father taught science and mathematics at a missionary school.
Known as Oscar, he became a famous actor-manager both in Australia and Europe, where one of his (self-written) productions: Chu Chin Chow had the distinction of holding the record in England of longest running show.
Many stories from this side of my family are known to me through Oscar's autobiography, but of my grandfather H.C.J. Asche (or Jack, as he was called) I know relatively little as he had died a couple of months before I was born.
www.parrotdogs.com /mydad.htm (1573 words)
Amazon.ca: Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy: Books: Brian Singleton(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
This book tells the story of producer, actor, and author OscarAsche, one of the most commercially successful actor/managers in the first half of the 20th century.
Though virtually written out of theatre history because of his triumph on the musical comedy stage, he is most frequently remembered today as having had a successful career as an actor and producer of Shakespeare.
Asche was an innovator in stage lighting and one of the first to use it as a language of the stage rather than as mere illumination.
Asche is a name whose history on English soil dates back to the wave of migration that followed the Norman Conquest of England of 1066.
In continental Europe, the most ancient recorded family crest was discovered upon the monumental effigy of a Count of Wasserburg in the church of St. Emeran, at Ratisobon, Germany...
In the Asche coat of arms as in all coat of arms the crest is only one element of the full armorial achievement.
Scrooge (1935) : DVD(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
OscarAsche is a rather Bulbous Spirit of Christmas Present and far different than the types we´ve seen in latter versions.
Still the dinginess and starkness of the sets and costuming kind of fits with this period of Dicken´s England so in some ways there is perhaps more authenticity to the film.
The other characters are secondary but all impeccable, including Donald Calthrop (familiar from his roles in several of Alfred Hitchcock´s British films), Maurice Evans, and rotund OscarAsche as the unforgettably fruity Ghost of Christmas Present.
Researching the naming of the town of Brayton opened up a whole new project for me which is my current work-in-progress.
During the course of this research I discovered OscarAsche, Geelong-born but London-famous, husband of the beautiful Shakespearean actress Lily Brayton.
In 2004 I self-published a small biography of OscarAsche: A Theatrical Life: The Many Faces of OscarAsche 1871-1936.
OscarAsche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy — www.greenwood.com
Description: This book tells the story of producer, actor, and author OscarAsche, one of the most commercially successful actor/managers in the first half of the 20th century.
OscarAsche excelled in many theatre genres, including musical comedy, pantomime, music hall, melodrama, and Shakespeare.
Sir Seymour Hicks is Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser who lords over his poor employee Bob Cratchit and hates the joys that Christmas affords everyone but himself.
Scrooge returns home to be haunted by three spirits who attempt to motivate a change in the old man's demeanor lest he continue on his current path and face almost certain eternal damnation.
Featuring a bravura performance from Seymour Hicks, delightful special effects, a gobbling "Ghost of Christmas Present" (OscarAsche), a shadowy "Ghost Of Christmas Yet to Come" (right out of Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 spook classic Vampyr) and a ghoulish gaggle of corpse scavengers, Scrooge is "A Christmas Carol" like you've never experienced it before.
Amazon.fr : Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy: Livres en anglais: Brian Singleton(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
Editeur : découvrez comment les clients peuvent effectuer des recherches sur le contenu de ce livre.
Producer, actor, and author, OscarAsche was one of the most commercially successful of the actor/managers in the first half of the twentieth century.
Though virtually written out of theatre history because of his triumph on the popular stages of musical comedy, he is now remembered as having a successful career as an actor and producer of Shakespeare.
Asche, Thomas Stange (or Stanger) Heiss Oscar; Marenas, Vasco) (12 works by)
Born John Stange(r) Heiss Asche at Mack's Hotel, Geelong (Vic), OscarAsche is described by Eric Irvin in the Dictionary of Australian Theatre 1788-1914 (q.v.) as a 'theatrical pioneer of no mean order...
Indeed, during his career he created several visual spectacles that were later taken up by stage and film producers such as Florenz Ziegfeld (staircase scenes) and Cecil B. de Mille....