Peacock

The theatre's ultimate showman, obsessed with spectacle and self-presentation.

David Belasco was one of Broadway's most flamboyant and dominant figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, famous for wearing a priest-like collar as a theatrical costume of personal branding and commanding attention wherever he went. He was legendarily obsessed with visual spectacle — pioneering elaborate, naturalistic stage design and lighting effects that dazzled audiences — making the production itself an extension of his own grandiose aesthetic ego. His autocratic control over every detail of his productions, combined with his love of being seen as a visionary genius and his flair for the dramatic in both art and life, makes him a textbook peacock.