Thomas L. Moxley (c. 1828, Baltimore — 7 July 1890, Baltimore) was an American actor, blackface minstrel show entertainer, and theatre manager. As a stage actor he performed under the name Master Floyd and was an acclaimed female impersonator in minstrel shows. He formed a close partnership with the minstrel show impresario, actor, and theatre manager George Kunkel. He was a leading member of Kunkel's Nightingales, one of the most popular minstrel shows of the 1850s and 1860s, and toured widely with the troupe during this period. In 1855 he formed a theatre management firm with Kunkel and John T. Ford; co-managing multiple theaters in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Richmond, Virginia. These included the National Theatre in Washington D.C., and the Richmond Theatre (then known as the Marshall Theatre) in Virginia. When Kunkel adapted Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin for the stage in 1861, Moxley portrayed the role of Topsy. In his obituary he was credited as the first actor to perform the role of Topsy in the theatre.
Moxley died of heart failure in Baltimore, Maryland on 7 July 1890 at the age of 62.
References
- ^ "Deaths In the Profession; Thomas L. Moxley". The New York Clipper. 12 July 1890. p. 279.
- Rice, Edward Le Roy (1911). "Thomas L. Moxley". Monarchs of Minstrelsy, from "Daddy" Rice to Date. Kenny Publishing Company. p. 59.
- Bogar, Thomas A. (2013). "A Hotbed of Spies and Seditious Plots". Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination: The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford's Theatre. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 9781621571742.
- Egle, William Henry (1896). Pennsylvania Genealogies: Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German. Harrisburg Publishing Company.
- "Death of Original "Topsy"". Madison Daily Herald. July 8, 1890. p. 1.