Short answers, pulled from the story.
William Kempe (c. 1560-c. 1603) was an English actor and dancer who specialised in comic roles in Elizabethan theatre. He was one of the original stage actors in early plays by William Shakespeare and was considered the successor to the great clown Richard Tarlton. He is confirmed to have played Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and Peter in Romeo and Juliet.
Kempe is confirmed by speech prefixes and stage directions to have played Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and Peter in Romeo and Juliet. Scholars have also deduced he likely played Costard in Love's Labour's Lost, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Lancelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice. Whether he played Falstaff is debated.
The precise circumstances of Kempe's departure from the Lord Chamberlain's Men in early 1599 remain unclear. Scholars have pointed to the absence of a promised Falstaff continuation in Henry V and a complaint about improvising clowns in Act 3, Scene 2 of Hamlet as possible evidence of artistic friction. He had shared in plans to build the Globe Theatre but appeared in none of its productions.
In February and March 1600, Kempe morris danced from London to Norwich, a distance of about 110 miles (177 km), completing the journey over nine days spread across several weeks before cheering crowds. He then published an account called Kempes Nine Daies Wonder later that year to counter doubters who refused to believe the feat had occurred.
Kemp's Jig is a 17th-century tune named after William Kempe. It was published in the first book of John Playford's The English Dancing Master in 1651. Examples of Kempe's jigs also survive in the manuscript collection of John Dowland, now held at Cambridge University Library, and the tune has been recorded by performers including Jan Akkerman and the folk band Gryphon.
The parish register of St. Saviour, Southwark, records the death of "William Kempe, a man" on the 2nd of November 1603, and this fits the point at which his name disappears from all other documents. The last undoubted mention of him in life appears in Philip Henslowe's diary in late 1602. Despite his fame, he appears to have died in poverty.