Breese was born in Brooklyn New York in 1871 and his first stage appearance was rather inauspicious: Eureka, Arkansas, in 1896. In the next few years he played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing and then Shylock. He joined the company of Ada Rehan where he again had an opportunity to play Shakespeare: Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew. In February 1903 he played Romeo and in May of that year Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet.

His career in Shakespeare seems to have ended, but not his career on the stage and in films. Between 1905 and 1907 he played John Burkett Ryder in Charles Klein's popular play The Lion and the Mouse. The play was produced in four different New York theatres for a total run of 686 performances. Breese left the stage in 1925 and did not return to the boards until 1935. He spent that decade in Hollywood playing parts in an impressive number of 127 films. But no appearance in a production of Shakespeare is recorded after 1903.

[The photograph of Breese is from a scene in Frank Capra's 1931 film Platinum Blonde (Columbia Studios).]

                                                             

A role in a non-Shakespearean play