Actor, Playwright. Along with Richard Tarlton he was the first professional comedian of the English stage, famed for his "quick, delicate, refined, extemporal wit", in the words of historian John Stow. His comedy "The Three Ladies of London" (c. 1584) influenced Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (c. 1597). Nothing is known of his background, though his reputed erudition suggests he had a university education. In 1574 he joined the Earl of Leicester's Men, the first major English stage company, and in 1583 he was chosen as one of the 12 original actors who made up the new Queen Elizabeth's Men. Tarlton, a pure clown, was at various times a member of both troupes, and perhaps because their comedy styles were so different he and Wilson became friends rather than rivals. After Tarlton's death in 1588 Wilson lamented that he missed drinking with him. From 1585 to 1586 he was given leave to accompany the Earl of Leicester on his Dutch expedition, an indication he enjoyed special status. Two years later he left the Queen's Men and after 1594 settled into Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1598 Francis Meres wrote of "our witty Wilson" and his memorable victory in a "challenge" at London's Swan Theatre, which he irritatingly does not describe. Besides performing he was occasionally active as a playwright; five plays are attributed to him with certainty. The first, now lost, is not what you would expect: "Catiline's Conspiracy" (c. 1579), apparently a Roman-style tragedy in the Seneca mode. Thomas Lodge, one of the "University Wits", called it "a piece surely worthy [of] praise, the practice of a good scholar". The rest, including "The Three Lords and The Three Ladies of London" (c. 1590), "The Cobbler's Prophecy" (c. 1594) and "The Peddler's Prophecy" (c. 1594) are short comic interludes based on Tudor morality plays, with allegorical or mythological figures representing virtue and vice. "The Three Ladies of London" has a remarkable episode about a Jewish moneylender named Gerontus trying to recover his loan to the Italian merchant Mercatore. He finally forgives the debt even though Mercatore has proven himself a complete scoundrel, causing him to exclaim that if Jews behaved the way some Christians did, they would not trust their own brothers. The pro-Semitism is almost unique in Elizabethan drama. Shakespeare would have known Wilson personally by the time he wrote "The Merchant of Venice". His take on the Gerontus-Mercatore conflict has Shylock demand his "pound of flesh" from Antonio, but he gave the character a history and dignity that has long enabled a sympathetic portrayal. The burial of "Robert Wilson, yeoman (player)" was recorded at St. Giles in Cripplegate on November 20, 1600. He is sometimes confused with his son Robert Wilson the Younger (1579–1610), a hack writer employed by producer Philip Henslowe in the late 1590s. A Henslowe drama he co-wrote with Henry Chettle, "Catiline's Conspiracy" (1598), was possibly a revision of his father's early play. This work is also lost.