Wilson Barrett(1846-1904)

A famous 19th-century actor-manager who played such roles as William Shakespeare's "Othello" onstage in addition to writing his own plays. His most famous stage work is the 1890s religious drama "The Sign of the Cross"; it appeared at approximately the same time as Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic novel, "Quo Vadis?", and may have been an "unofficial adaptation" of it (such practices were not uncommon at the time and Barrett's play bears many striking similarities to Sienkiewicz's novel in its plot and some of its characters).