My father, David Mayer, who has died aged 94, was a theatre historian and professor of drama. He introduced collectively movie and theatre students and remodeled their understanding of early cinema and the Victorian and Edwardian stage.
At 6ft 3in, he was a towering determine in each means, and all the time selected humour over decorum. It might not be a coincidence that so lots of his college students (and I) discovered their means into comedy – together with Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Meera Syal.
David appreciated to explain himself as a Jewish cowboy. His childhood summers have been spent in Colorado, the place he discovered to trip and twine cattle, however he primarily grew up on the prosperous north shore of Chicago, because the eldest son of Purple Mayer, the proprietor of the clothes retailer the place Al Capone purchased his trademark Borsalino hats, and Jane Mayer, a author of romantic fiction.
He attended New Trier highschool in Winnetka, Illinois, then Yale, the place he majored in English literature and was within the swimming workforce. After commencement, he by some means managed to spend his army service making coaching movies in New York, the place he received right into a battle with Frank Sinatra.
In 1954 he married a fellow Chicagoan, Anne Goodkind, they usually had three daughters, Cassandra, Catherine and me. A PhD in dramatic literature and theatre historical past at Northwestern College in Evanston, Illinois, and an early publish as affiliate professor of theatre and drama at Lawrence Faculty in Appleton, Wisconsin, led to a Guggenheim fellowship that introduced our household to London for a yr in 1963, whereas he researched early Nineteenth-century English pantomime and revealed the primary of many books.
On his return, life in a small midwestern city felt stifling so we upped sticks and boarded the Queen Elizabeth for the week-long Atlantic crossing.
The College of Manchester provided David his first everlasting publish within the UK in 1972 as a lecturer in drama. There, his scholarly curiosity started encompassing melodrama, hippodrama and different well-liked theatre types of the Nineteenth century. It was additionally the place, following my dad and mom’ divorce in 1978, he fell in love with Helen Day, and the place they made their dwelling from 1980 (marrying in 1991), though my father remained a proud American citizen.
As emeritus professor and analysis professor after his retirement from educating in 1996, he continued to put in writing and publish extensively till his demise. He was by no means happier than in his research, surrounded by his books and huge assortment of theatre and movie memorabilia. He was quietly thrilled when, in 2012, the American Society for Theatre Analysis awarded him their Distinguished Scholar Award.
He’s survived by Helen, Cassie, Catherine and me, and his grandson, Isaac.
