“Alas Poor Yorick” slashes across the page of the March 31, 1941 edition of the Appleton Post–Crescent. “John Reed of Philadelphia realized his life’s ambition to appear on the stage after he was in the grave!”
The “fun fact” was one of several compiled in one of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” cartoons—the rather tame original version of the franchise consisting of illustrated curations of strange facts that newspapers could reprint. Alongside a two–headed beet and an 11–year–old girl who tap dances on her head appears Reed’s own bizarre last wish: He bequeathed his head to be used in productions of Hamlet. “Reed’s skull was used for 16 years!” the comic shouts.
The skull of John Reed is the stuff of legends: It’s a weird factoid, a local legend, and a part of the history of the Walnut Street Theatre—the oldest theater in the United States. But for all the energy spent on did–you–know–ing this piece of lore, the location of the skull is a murky topic at best. So how exactly does a very real artifact seemingly get lost in time? Worse yet, what happens when a man’s head goes missing?
According to his obituary in The New York Times, John Reed was born in Philadelphia in 1808. He began his career at age 16 at the Walnut Street Theatre, where he worked until 1880. He would continue to be connected with the theater until his death in July 1891. Reed had a beloved reputation at the theater, and was affectionately known as “Old ‘Pop’ Reed.” Though his specific role varies by report—stagehand, gaslighter, and prop master—he was, notably, never an actor onstage, despite his love for the art.
When Reed died in 1891, his will expressed a rather specific request: “My head to be separate from my body immediately after my death; the latter to be buried in a grave; the former duly macerated and prepared to be brought to the theatre where I served all my life, and to be employed to represent the skull of Yorick.” And thus it was done. Reed had secured his legacy as the titular “fellow of infinite jest” in Shakespeare’s Danish tragedy.
Reed’s bequeathal of his skull to the Walnut Street Theatre may appear as an odd, one–off instance, but there’s a rather long–running line of people dying to be cast as the departed jester. In a statement emailed to Street, Shakespearean scholar and curator of research services at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts Alica Meyer wrote, “It seems to have been relatively common for nineteenth–century tragedians to use human skulls in their portrayal of Hamlet, especially if they were appearing in a high–profile production of the play.” Multiple libraries and museums contain artifacts, either of the actual skulls used as props or of photographs of actors holding real skulls.
John “Pop” Reed isn’t even the only man to supposedly give his skull to the Walnut Street Theatre. As the story goes, Junuis Brutus Booth was willed the skull of a horse thief named Fontaine. As legend has it, Booth and Fontaine spent a night in jail together, and Fontaine later bequeathed his skull in the hopes of appearing on the stage as his final act. The skull was signed by different renditions of Hamlet as well, and even once by one of the gravedigger’s actors.
The tradition has carried on into at least the late 20th century. In 1955, Juan Potomachi bequeathed his skull to the Teatro Dramatico in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in 1995, actor Jonathan Hartman attempted the same for the Royal Shakespeare Company. But, as in life, Hartman was rejected from the RSC. However, the RSC’s 2008 production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant, did use the skull of André Tchaikowsky, a now–deceased concert pianist and composer. Just this past year, Tennant himself offered up his skull to be used in future productions when his time comes, though he’s doubtful he could secure the role, legally speaking.
While John Reed may be far from the only one to audition from beyond the grave, his story has gained significant notoriety, having been published and republished many a time in the years since his death. And with this consistent retelling, like a massive game of telephone, the details of his story have become warped.
Reed’s postburial request resurfaced throughout the 20th century, becoming a fun factoid for newspapers to report on—though more emphasis is placed on the “fun” than the “fact.” In the 1889 edition of Charles Dickens’ All The Year Round, a weekly literary magazine circulated in the United Kingdom, two sentences are dedicated to the story of Reed. In a 1909 article entitled “Odd Burial Requests,” the New York Tribune reprinted Reed’s clipped will and wrote that “love of the stage has led many a man and woman to strange actions.” “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” comic appeared in multiple newspapers across the country, but strangely reported that the skull was destroyed after a fire in the Walnut Street Theatre in 1890—a year before Reed even passed.
What actually happened to the skull after Reed’s death is difficult to determine. Supposedly, after it was removed from the body, the skull was used in multiple productions of Hamlet. Bernard Havard, current president and producing artistic director of the Walnut Street Theatre, explains that “the skull was used many times by the actors in Hamlet and the staff. The star performer who played Hamlet would inscribe his signature on the skull.”
But the skull has to have gone missing at some point, because multiple sources report it having been “found,” though they can’t entirely agree on what happened. The theater changed hands multiple times, and in 1920 was signed over to millionaire James P. Beaury. As a means of modernizing the theater, the interior was rebuilt and the stage enlarged, leading to the discovery of a back room with old props. According to Andrew Davis’ book America’s Longest Run: A History of the Walnut Street Theatre, alongside filled costume trunks from the 19th century and the diary of famous 19th century actor Junius Brutus Booth—the father of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth—“workmen discovered a skull that had been carefully packed away. It was assumed to be that of ‘Pop’ Reed.”
Twenty years later, on May 14, 1941, Variety published, “[Reed’s] Skull disappeared about 25 years ago and was located among the effects of an attache of the Academy of Music.” The article claims that the skull had been given to him from “a friend.”
Later that same year, The New York Times reported a similar story, although it claimed the skull had been located in the Academy of Music and returned to the theater. The article ends, “John Reed’s skull lies safely in the place where he wished it, awaiting the next Hamlet, who, if perchance he be old enough, can truly say, ‘Alas! Poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.’”
The status of Reed’s skull in the late 20th century again becomes murky, with rumors floating around that it was acquired by Van Pelt–Dietrich Library. An article from 2009, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the theater’s opening in 1809, states as such: “Reed’s skull—long retired and now residing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt Library—was autographed by actors who performed with the macabre prop.”
“How they got that skull? I have no idea,” Havard says. “Whether it was taken from the Walnut or somebody gave it to them.”
According to Havard and the Walnut Street Theatre, Van Pelt has had the skull since it was rediscovered back in the 1920s. Havard also claims that about 25 years ago, the library was allowed to display the skull for a short period of time, but that Van Pelt ultimately took it back into its archive out of preservation concerns.
“He obviously had very strong feelings about wanting to stay at the theater for as long as eternity,” Havard says. “And he nearly got his wish, except now he resides in the library instead of the theater. Which is a shame, really.”
The Kislak Center does, in fact, have a skull in its repertoire. It was a skull reportedly used in productions of Hamlet. It was a skull that, as records indicate, was loaned out to the Walnut Street Theatre decades ago for a production of Hamlet. It bears the names of many famous actors who once played the Bard’s Sweet Prince, including Edwin Booth and Edwin Forrest, both of whom were stars of Walnut Street Theatre, alongside international performers like Edmund Kean and William Macready.
But it is not the skull of John “Pop” Reed.
“There are records documenting this skull going back to the 1830s—so long before John Reed died. In the 1870s, it passed into the care of Horace Howard Furness, a Shakespeare scholar who produced editions of Shakespeare’s plays in a series called The New Variorum to Shakespeare,” Meyer writes in her statement to Street. “Furness had the human skull because of its association with nineteenth–century productions of Hamlet. Still, the skull is not exclusively associated with the Walnut Street Theatre, but rather his broader interest in Shakespeare.”
The skull was bequeathed to the University in 1931 by Furness’ son, Horace Howard Furness Jr. It was a part of Furness’ massive collection of artifacts, including a pair of cursed gloves supposed to be Shakespeare’s, and over 3,000 playbills. The identity and origin of the skull is not currently known.
For the foreseeable future, the skull will reside at the Kislak Center. “We are continuing to conduct archival research with repositories at Penn and beyond to illuminate the earlier history, before the Furness family acquired it,” Meyer writes. “Until its origins are better understood, the skull remains under the care of the library. It is restricted to genuine scholarly inquiry that honors the deceased and extends the Kislak Center’s respect for the person whose remains are safeguarded here.”
In Act 5, Scene 1 of Hamlet, the Prince postulates the identities of the skulls surrounding him in the kingdom’s graveyard. A lawyer, perhaps? Or a politician? A courier? Struck by his own potential madness and a thirst for avenging his father, Hamlet encounters the skull of the beloved court jester, whom he remembers fondly. “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?” Hamlet mourns. “Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen?” The safe world that Hamlet has grown up in is gone, and a man he once loved is nothing but only a faceless, unrecognizable skull.
John Reed lived his life at Walnut Street Theatre and gave his death to it as well. The real–life details of what happened to his skull, whose Hamlet he accompanied, and where it resides now, are difficult to parse through. But regardless of the facts, Reed’s life has lived on in legend. He’s established himself as a part of the Walnut Street Theatre’s history and gained notoriety across the world and across two centuries. Though he may have never graced the stage while alive, his son Roland Lewis Reed became an actor and comedian, gaining fame within the city of Philadelphia, and his granddaughter Florence Reed was a starlet of the silver screen. And though the theater no longer can claim his skull, it has continued on his name with the Pop Reed Society to honor those who give their life to the stage.
