Philip Tonge

Philip Asheton Tonge (26 April 1897 – 28 January 1959) was an English actor. Born into a theatrical family, he was a child actor, making his stage debut at the age of five. Among the stars with whom he performed while he was a boy were Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Ellen Terry and Johnston Forbes-Robertson. His colleagues as child actors included Hermione Gingold, Mary Glynne, Esmé Wynne-Tyson and Noël Coward. Tonge's adult acting career was in the US, where he and his parents settled after the First World War. He made numerous appearances in Broadway productions, including nine Coward plays. Among his films were Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). 2Life and career 3Early years Tonge was born in Hampstead, London, the son of the actor H. Asheton Tonge and his wife Lillian, née Brennard, an actress He made his first appearance on the stage at His Majesty's Theatre in October 1902, as Joseph in Hall Caine's The Eternal City. In December of that year he took the part of Donald in A Little Un-Fairy Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, in 1903 he played Ib in Ib and Little Christina at Terry's Theatre and Egil in Ibsen's The Vikings under Ellen Terry's management at the Imperial. Other child roles included Cupid in a revival of Ben Jonson's masque The Hue and Cry After Cupid (1903), Geoffrey in Tennyson's Becket, starring Henry Irving and Eilif in An Enemy of the People starring Herbert Beerbohm Tree (all 1905