Joseph Cawthorn
Acting
Born 1868-03-27
Died 1949-01-21
New York City, New York, USA
53 credits
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Cawthorn (March 29, 1868, New York City, New York – January 21, 1949, Beverly Hills, California) was an American stage and film comic actor. Cawthorn started out in show business as a child, debuting at Robinson's Music Hall in his hometown of New York in 1872. He appeared in minstrel shows and vaudeville as a "Dutch" comic, employing a thick German dialect. He later worked in British music halls and American touring companies.
Cawthorn made his Broadway debut in 1895, 1897 or 1898, and embarked on a long career lasting over two decades. His first success was playing Boris in Victor Herbert's 1898 operetta The Fortune Teller. Other notable Broadway roles included the title character in Mother Goose (1903) and inventor Dr. Pill in the fantasy musical Little Nemo (1908). In the latter, he was called upon to ad lib to buy time during one performance. As "the scene called for him to describe imaginary animals he had hunted", he invented the "whiffenpoof" on the spot. Yale students in the audience appropriated it for the name of their glee club.
When his Broadway stardom waned, Cawthorn moved to Hollywood in 1927 and started a second prolific career, appearing in over 50 films, the last in 1942. He played Gremio in the first sound adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks; Schultz in Gold Diggers of 1935; and Florenz Ziegfeld's father in The Great Ziegfeld (1936).
Cawthorn died peacefully on January 21, 1949. He was survived by his wife, actress Queenie Vassar.
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Filmography
Acting
52 credits
Love Me Tonight
Housewife
The Great Ziegfeld
White Zombie
Blondie Johnson
Naughty Marietta
Page Miss Glory
Scatterbrain
The Runaround
Kiki
Peach-o-Reno
So Ends Our Night
Lazy River
Made on Broadway
Smart Girl
Men Are Such Fools
Lillian Russell
The Postman Didn't Ring
The Human Side
Maybe It's Love
Sweet Music
Brides Are Like That
Young and Beautiful
Twenty Million Sweethearts
Best of Enemies
Harmony Lane
The Last Gentleman
Two Girls Wanted
Grand Slam
Bright Lights
A Tailor-Made Man
They Call It Sin
Crime Over London
Gold Diggers of 1935
Broken Dreams
Silk Legs
Freshman Love
Dixiana
Music in the Air
The Taming of the Shrew
Hot Money
Street Girl
One Rainy Afternoon
Very Confidential
Hold 'Em Yale
The Princess and the Plumber
Dance Hall
The Secret Studio
Jazz Heaven
Sweet Adeline
Whistling in the Dark
Speakeasy
Other credits
1 credit
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