Sothern was born in
New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of English actor
E. A. Sothern and his wife Frances Emily "Fannie" Stewart (d. 1882). Sothern was educated in England at
St Marylebone Grammar School. His brothers and sister all became actors: Lytton Edward Sothern (1851–1887); George Evelyn Augustus T. Sothern (1864–1920), who used the stage name Sam Sothern; and Eva Mary Sothern.
Early career and Lyceum years , 1911 Sothern's father had encouraged pursuits other than the stage, but Sothern had already caught the acting bug. His first professional acting appearance was in 1879 as the cabman in an American revival of
Brother Sam, a show written by
John Oxenford in 1862 for his father, and in which his father played the lead. After playing in Boston and touring in the U.S., he sailed for England, making his London debut in 1881 on a double bill as Mr. Sharpe in
False Colours and Marshley Bittern in
Out of the Hunt. The next year, he played Arthur Spoonbill in
Fourteen Days and then toured in Britain with
Charles Wyndham's company. In 1883, he returned to the U.S. and toured first with
John McCullough and then
Helen Barry. Back in New York, in 1884, he played Eliphaz Tresham in
The Fatal Letter, Melchizidec Flighty in
Whose Are They?, which he wrote himself, and in ''Nita's First
. The next year, he was Alfred Vane in Favette
, Knolly in Mona
, John in In Chancery
and Jules in A Moral Climate''. He was hired by
Charles and
Daniel Frohman in the
stock company of the
old Lyceum Theatre in New York, where he starred as a leading man for the next twelve years. The role made him a star. After he left the Lyceum, he continued in romantic roles in New York. In 1899, he played
d'Artagnan in ''The King's Musketeer
, and in 1900 he played Heinrich in The Sunken Bell
and Sir Geoffrey Bloomfield in Drifting Apart
. For several years, Sothern dreamed of mounting a spectacular and precise production of Hamlet''. He finally opened the play in New York in 1900, but during the first week, he was stabbed in the foot by Laertes' sword and was stricken with
blood poisoning, closing the production. After he recovered, he revived the piece on tour, but the sets and costumes were destroyed by a fire in
Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1901, he played the title role in
Richard Lovelace and then
François Villon in
If I Were King. In 1903, he played the title role in
Markheim and Robert, the King of Sicily, in
The Proud Prince, after which he toured again. Sothern appeared in several early films, including
The Chattel (1916) and
The Man of Mystery (1917). He also wrote about a dozen plays that he appeared in, although most of them are lost. Sothern died in
New York City at the
Plaza Hotel, of pneumonia, in 1933 at the age of 73 and was cremated. ==Filmography==