John Hare (1844-1921), or John Joseph Fairs, was an actor-manager who made his reputation as one of the greatest character actors of his day. He was born in Yorkshire but educated in London and on visits to the theatre was able to watch some of the leading actors of the period and develop a desire to act. His first professional stage appearance was in Liverpool in 1864 where he met the actor manager Squire Bancroft who became a lifelong friend.

John Hare's London debut was at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1865, but he made his name as Lord Ptarmigant in Society by T. W. Robertson, with whose plays he became particularly associated. Hare's detailed, well-considered style of acting was perfect for the new type of domestic comedy being produced by the Bancrofts at the Prince of Wales Theatre, where Hare stayed until 1875 when he left to run the Court Theatre. He later managed the St. James's and the Garrick theatres, but it was for creating some of the finest comic characters in new plays by such authors as Robertson and Pinero that he became particularly well known. When this drawing of Hare was published in Vanity Fair magazine in March 1890, he was making London audiences laugh at the Garrick Theatre playing the old man Benjamin Goldfish in Sydney Grundy's play A Pair of Spectacles. In 1907 he was knighted for his services to the stage.