Willem Royaards in Grompie/Grumpy (1915)

Vintage Dutch postcard. M.M. Couvée, The Hague. Willem Royaards in the Dutch stage play Grompie (Grumpy), written by Horace Hodge and T. Wigney Percyval, and first performed by NV Het Tooneel in 1914-15. Royaards would repeat the play in 1923.

Dr Willem Cornelis Royaards (Amsterdam, 21 January 1867 - Menton, 24 January 1929) was a Dutch actor, director and stage manager.

Willem Royaards was a midshipman for two years before joining the stage in 1886. That same year, he joined the Koninklijke Vereeniging Het Nederlandsch Tooneel (KVHNT) , the company that played the Stadsschouwburg and the Grand Théatre in Amsterdam. Between 1892 and 1894 he joined the company of the Rotterdam Tivoli theatre, but rejoined the KVHNT afterward. Deluded by the Dutch climate, he acted in Britain in the later 1890s. In 1904-1906 Royaards acted in Germany at the Deutsches Theater of Max Reinhardt. Returned, he modernised the Dutch theatre by involving the other arts and thus calling upon artist Richard Roland Holst and composers Hubert Cuijpers and Alphons Diepenbrock. Between 1908 and 1920 Royaards acted at NV Het Toneel. In 1920 the City of Amsterdam took over the Stadsschouwburg and under Royaards' direction the KVHNT was the regular troupe playing there, until it disbanded in 1925. Afterward, Royaards only did guest performances.

Royaards was the progenitor of a stage dynasty. From the relationship with Georgiana Rossini Eveline Whitely, came his first son Willem Cornelis (legal adviser, 1899-1989). He later married actresses Josephine Spoor and Jacqueline Sandberg (1876-1976). His son Ben, from his second marriage, was the father of actors Jules and Hans Royaards. Rense and Joachim (Jochem) Royaards, children of his youngest son Cornelis Willem, were also on the stage for some time.

On 23 February 1919, Royaards was promoted to Doctor Honoris Causa in Dutch literature by the University of Utrecht. In late December 1928, the seriously ill Royaards left for the south of France, hoping to find healing there. He died there in Menton at the age of 62. All in all, Royaards acted in over 300 parts.

Ben Albach writes about him: "Based on his great reading and literary insight, Royaards chose works from world literature that inspired him by their linguistic beauty and profound content. He penetrated them, usually translating them himself, developing a vision in the style and spirit of the poet. Only after a laborious, lengthy process of consultation with his collaborators did the performance as he envisaged it take shape; attention was paid to even the smallest detail.

Royaards was not an easy man: an autocrat, a ruler's nature, but behind a haughty attitude hid his hypersensitive nature; warm-hearted and loyal in his friendships, as evidenced by the thousands of letters in which he poured out his heart, unfolded his thoughts and ideals. Despite the honours bestowed on him, he felt abandoned: the lack of genuine interest from the government embittered him. But through his passionate struggle for recognition of the rights of the creative imagination, at a time that was little open to it, Willem Royaards raised dramatic art in the Netherlands to the level of the other arts."

While Royaards never acted in film, his wife Jacqueline Royaards-Sandberg did. See our card www.flickr.com/photos/truusbobjantoo/54094696511/in/photo...

Sources: Dutch Wikipedia, Theaterencyclopedie, Ben Albach on KNAW/ Huygens Instituut (resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn1/roija...).

Taken on: April 21, 2025

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Sets appears in: • Dutch postcards before 1930 • Dutch stage

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