1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Crane, William Henry

CRANE, WILLIAM HENRY (1845–  ), American actor, was born on the 30th of April 1845, in Leicester, Massachusetts, and made his first appearance at Utica, New York, in Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment in 1863. Later he had a great success as Le Blanc the Notary, in the burlesque Evangeline (1873). He made his first hit in the legitimate drama with Stuart Robson (1836–1903), in The Comedy of Errors and other Shakespearian plays, and in The Henrietta (1881) by Bronson Howard (1842–1908). This partnership lasted for twelve years, and subsequently Crane appeared in various eccentric character parts in such plays as The Senator and David Harum. In 1904 he turned to more serious work and played Isidore Izard in Business is Business, an adaptation from Octave Mirbeau’s Les Affaires sont les affaires.