In the 1750s, Charles Macklin's theatrical career was in limbo. While he is now remembered and studied as an important playwright and one of the principal (and longest-lived) actors of the eighteenth century, by the mid-1750s he can only have felt that he was a failure. Poor relations with the managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, a series of unsuccessful plays, and a diminishing repertory of roles led to his (enforced) retirement in 1753. He then opened a tavern, which quickly bankrupted him. Too little attention has been paid to this grim period in Macklin's career and to the triumphant retrieval of his theatrical fortunes in 1759 with his farce Love à la Mode. The importance of Macklin's return to the stage was recognized by William W. Appleton, who devoted an entire chapter of his 1960 biography of Macklin to this episode. Nonetheless, several important biographical questions remained unanswered or insufficiently answered—questions I would like to reopen based on some newly discovered evidence.