John T. Raymond (born John O’Brien in Buffalo, New York) was a professional actor from 1853, specializing in comic roles. In April 1874 he appeared as Colonel Sellers in a San Francisco play adapted (without authorization) from the Mark Twain–Charles Dudley Warner novel The Gilded Age. Clemens acquired the rights to the play and thoroughly revised it; as Colonel Sellers, it opened in New York in September 1874, with Raymond in the title role. The new play was successful, the touring production running for twelve years. In 1884 Raymond rejected a second Sellers play written by Mark Twain with William Dean Howells; as Raymond was thoroughly associated with the role by that time, the play was abandoned. He died suddenly in an Evansville, Indiana, hotel in the midst of a tour. SLC and Raymond always had an uneasy association. Despite Raymond’s success as Colonel Sellers, SLC thought he portrayed only the character’s humor, and not his pathos. Moreover, SLC considered him dishonest, as well as “selfish and vulgar and ignorant.”