KEAN, CHARLES JOHN (181i-1868), son of Edmund Kean, was born at Waterford, Ireland, on Jan. 18, 1811. After three years at Eton he was offered, in 1827, a cadetship in the East India Company's service, which he was prepared to accept if his father would settle an income of £400 on his mother. The elder Kean refused to do this, and his son determined to become an actor. He made his first appearance at Drury Lane on Oct. 1, 1827, as Norval in Home's Douglas. At Glasgow, on Oct. I in the following year, father and son acted together in Arnold Payne's Brutus, the elder Kean in the title-part and his son as Titus. After a visit to America in 183o, he appeared in 1833 at Covent Garden as Sir Edmund Mortimer in Colman's The Iron Chest. He then returned to the provinces, but in January 1838, he returned to Drury Lane, where he played Hamlet with great success. He married the actress Ellen Tree (18o5-188o) on Jan.
29, 1842, and paid a second visit to America with her from 1845 to 1847. Returning to England, he entered on a successful engage ment at the Haymarket, and in 185o, with Robert Keeley, became lessee of the Princess Theatre. The most noteworthy feature of his management was a series of gorgeous Shakespearian revivals. Charles Kean was not a great tragic actor ; but in melodramatic parts such as the king in Boucicault's adaptation of Casimir Delavigne's Louis XI., and Louis and Fabian dei Franchi in Bouci cault's adaptation of Dumas's The Corsican Brothers, his success was complete. Kean returned in 1866 from an extended tour abroad in broken health, and died in London on Jan. 22. 1868.
See J. W. Cole, Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean (1859).