He was born in Buffalo, New York. His mother, Margaret, was a native of Killeagh, County Cork. In the early years of his career Olcott sang in minstrel shows, before studying singing in London during the 1880s. Lillian Russell played a major role in helping make him a Broadway star. When the producerAugustus Pitou approached him in 1893 to succeed William J. Scanlan as the leading tenor in sentimental operettas on Irish themes, Olcott accepted and performed pseudo-Irish roles for the remainder of his career. Olcott combined the roles of tenor, actor, lyricist and composer in many productions. He wrote the complete scores to Irish musicals such as Sweet Inniscara, A Romance of Athlone, Garrett O'Magh, and Old Limerick Town. For other productions he collaborated with Ernest R. Ball and George Graff in works such as The Irish Artist, Barry of Ballymore, Macushla, and The Isle o' Dreams. There are some 20 such works between 1894 and 1920. He was a good songwriter who captured the mood of his Irish-American audience by combining melodic and rhythmic phrases from traditional Irish music with melancholy sentiment. Some numbers from his musicals became very popular, such as "My Wild Irish Rose" from A Romance of Athlone, "Mother Machree" from Barry of Ballymore, and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" from The Isle o' Dreams. Sometimes he used tunes from others, such as that of the title song from Macushla from Irish composer Dermot Macmurrough or Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral by James Royce Shannon for his production Shameen Dhu. In 1925, a serious illness forced him to retire, and he moved to Monte Carlo where he died of pernicious anemia in 1932. His body was brought home and interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.
Legacy
Olcott's life story was told in the 1947 Warner Bros. motion picture My Wild Irish Rose starring Dennis Morgan as Olcott. The film's plot was based on the biography by Olcott's widow, Rita Olcott, Song in His Heart. In 1970, Olcott was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
