Death
He lived a long life and may have died a centenarian, although that is not without doubt. While his second wife gave his birth year as 1690 on the memorial tablet installed in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, making him 107 at his death; others have suggested that he was born in 1699 or 1710. His memorial shows a dagger piercing the eye of a theatrical mask, a contrite reference to his altercation with Thomas Hallam.
Macklin’s famous role as Shylock and introduction of naturalistic acting would later influence realism in the 19th century. If anything, Macklin’s drive and discipline to perfect himself as an actor and teacher still inspires theatre practitioners today. Macklin was never afraid of the moment and took every opportunity to become better in his profession. Many will continue to play Shylock, but it is no doubt that Macklin will always be the Jew that Shakespeare drew.
Macklin is remembered today in his native Inishowen, where the Charles Macklin Autumn School is held each October in the village of Culdaff.
Read more about this topic: Charles Macklin
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?”
—Langdon Smith (18581908)
“Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)
“The dignity to be sought in death is the appreciation by others of what one has been in life,... that proceeds from a life well lived and from the acceptance of ones own death as a necessary process of nature.... It is also the recognition that the real event taking place at the end of our life is our death, not the attempts to prevent it.”
—Sherwin B. Nuland (b. 1930)