Solomon Smith Russell (1848–1902) was a 19th-century American comedic stage actor who began performing as a boy during the American Civil War.
Early life
Russell was born at Brunswick, Missouri, the eldest of two sons and a daughter raised by Charles and Louise (née Mathews) Russell. While a young boy Russell's family moved to St. Louis where his father manufactured and sold tinware. Russell's mother was from Ohio, the daughter of a Cincinnati music teacher. It soon became apparent that Russell did not share his father's talent as a tin maker and that his best option would be to prepare for a college education. Both his parents were very religious and had a prejudice against the theater, even though Russell's uncle, Sol Smith (1801–1869), was a well-known actor and theater manager in St. Louis. This family connection enabled Russell easy access to area theaters watching plays, sometimes from backstage, without his parents' knowledge.
At the age of thirteen, not long after the outbreak of the American Civil War, Russell ran away from home to serve in the Union Army as a drummer boy. He tried to enlist as a musician, but was unable to obtain the required written consent of his parents. Russell soon became popular with the officers and soldiers providing entertainment to break the dull routine of daily camp life. He fell ill while stationed at Paducah, Kentucky, and after being told that he was likely to die managed to return home to St. Louis, where his mother eventually nursed him back to health.
Career
Transcribed from "Famous Actors of the Day in America" by Lewis Clinton Strang; 1899, pg. 248–260
"My first theatrical engagement was at the Defiance Theatre, Cairo, Illinois, in 1862, at the magnificent salary of six dollars a week," said Mr. Russell. "For this recompense I sang between the acts and played and drummed in the orchestra. I had for a bed the stage lounge, and counted myself lucky to have even so good a place to sleep as that. The manager of the theatre, Mr. Holland, was very kind to me. He took me to his home and gave me free access to his excellent theatrical library, and during such spare time as I had, I read. My first acting was in a play called 'The Hidden Hand,' and my part was that of a negro girl. I made quite a success of it." He was then offered twelve dollars a week if he would learn to walk the slack wire. He accepted and joined "Bob Carter's Dog Show," which traveled on a canal boat. When it was necessary Mr. Russell joined the mules in hauling the craft. His next engagement was at John Bates's National Theatre in Cincinnati, where he sang between the acts, and after that he was a stock actor and a singer in Deagle's Theatre, St. Louis. Then he played in Milwaukee, later becoming connected with the Peake Family Bell Ringers, who followed the army into Arkansas and Tennessee. During the season of 1864–65 Mr. Russell was second comedian in the Nashville Theatre, where Laura Keene and Maggie Mitchell also played, and the following season he was at Ben DeBar's Theatre, St. Louis, with Lawrence Barrett. The fall of 1866 found him visiting some small Western towns and experiencing every variety of hard luck. "Perhaps you'd like to have me tell you of my walk of thirty-six miles on a given occasion, with my wardrobe, tied up in a yellow handkerchief, under my arm," Mr. Russell remarked; "of my offering to give an entertainment, single-handed and alone, in a town,—one of the small towns of the region,—for which exhibition of my talents the boys of the place drove me into the river and pummeled me to their evident delight and satisfaction; of my subsisting for three days on one chicken ; of my arriving at the little town of Meredosia, Illinois, where there was no printing-office; of my taking one old handbill from my bundle, and, procuring a bell, going about the village and arousing the inhabitants, taking my bill from house to house, from store to store, and showing my program, and then, when evening came, exhibiting my abilities and talents to a house' whose receipts brought me, all told, exactly sixty-five cents! But after all this was a good house for me at that particular time.