1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chevalier, Albert

CHEVALIER, ALBERT (1861–  ), English comedian, began a connexion with the stage while still a child. In 1877 he was engaged as an actor under the Bancrofts in London, and for some years played “legitimate” parts at the Court theatre and elsewhere. In 1891, however, he began a successful music-hall career as a singer of coster songs of his own invention, a new type in which he had an immediate success, both in England and America. He subsequently organized an entertainment of his own, with sketches and songs, with which he went on tour, establishing a wide popularity as an original artist in his special line.