Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield (19 May 1857 – 20 October 1913) was a British actor, playwright and journalist, including at The Saturday Review. His most famous work for the theatre was the Edwardian Musical Comedy The Belle of Mayfair (1906).
Brookfield had an early interest in theatre and joined the acting profession despite family opposition. He achieved success in a 20-year acting career, including with the company of Squire Bancroft at London's Haymarket Theatre in the 1880s. In 1893, he was the first actor known to have played Sherlock Holmes, in his own musical parody.[1] During his acting career, Brookfield began writing stage works, and, in one of his last acting roles as Baron Grog in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein in 1897 with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre, he adapted the company's English version.
After he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1898, he focused on writing plays and musical theatre. In his last years, he was Britain's Examiner of Plays, even though he had been criticised as biased against various contemporary playwrights and also for writing a particularly risqué comedy in 1908.