Name
Joseph Cawthorn
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1868-03-27
Deathday
1949-01-21 (81 years old)
Place of Birth
New York City, New York, USA
Biography
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.
Known For
6.274
At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his...
5.5
In order to avoid a prearranged marriage, a rebellious French princess sheds her identity ...
5.99
A wealthy landowner living in Haiti convinces a sorcerer to lure the woman he has fallen f...
5.9
A Depression-downtrodden waif uses her brains instead of her body to rise from tyro con a...
5
Suave French actor Philippe Martin provokes a scandal when, in a darkened theater, he mist...
6.615
Alice Faye plays the title role in this 1940 film biography of the early-20th-century stag...
6.6
A Parisian tailor goes to a château to collect a bill, only to fall for an aloof young pr...
6.045
A young, innocent small-town church organist is thrown out of her home, told she was adopt...
6.308
An anti-Nazi refugee on the run and a young Jewish couple race across Europe trying to esc...
- 1933 Blondie Johnson as Jewelry Store Manager (as Joe Cawthorn)
- 1942 The Postman Didn't Ring as Silas Harwood
- 1930 Dixiana as Cornelius Van Horn, Carl's Father
- 1932 Love Me Tonight as Dr. Armand de Fontinac
- 1932 White Zombie as Dr. Bruner
- 1936 The Great Ziegfeld as Dr. Ziegfeld
- 1934 Sweet Adeline as Oscar Schmidt
- 1935 Naughty Marietta as Herr 'Schumie' Schuman
- 1933 Best of Enemies as Gus Schneider
- 1931 Peach-o-Reno as Joe Bruno
- 1931 Kiki as Alfred Rapp
- 1934 Young and Beautiful as Herman Cline
- 1927 Silk Legs as Ezra Fulton
- 1934 The Last Gentleman as Dr. Wilson
- 1935 Sweet Music as Sidney Selzer
- 1936 One Rainy Afternoon as Monique's Father
- 1935 Harmony Lane as Professor Henry Kleber
- 1936 Brides Are Like That as Fred Schultz
- 1934 Housewife as Krueger (as Joe Cawthorne)
- 1936 Hot Money as Max Dourfuss
- 1933 Broken Dreams as Pop
- 1929 Dance Hall as Bremmer
- 1931 The Runaround as Lou
- 1932 They Call It Sin as Mr. Hollister
- 1940 Scatterbrain as Nicholas Raptis
- 1928 Hold 'Em Yale as Professor George Bradbury
- 1929 Jazz Heaven as Herman Kemple
- 1934 Twenty Million Sweethearts as Herbert Brokman
- 1934 Lazy River as Mr. Julius Ambrose
- 1933 Whistling in the Dark as Barfuss
- 1935 Page Miss Glory as Mr. Freischutz
- 1935 Maybe It's Love as Adolph Sr.
- 1929 Street Girl as Keppel - Cafe Owner
- 1935 Smart Girl as Karl Krausemeyer
- 1934 Music in the Air as Hans Uppman
- 1936 Freshman Love as Wilson, Sr.
- 1940 Lillian Russell as Leopold Damrosch
- 1932 Men Are Such Fools as Werner (as Joseph Cawthorne)
- 1935 Bright Lights as Oscar Schlemmer
- 1929 The Taming of the Shrew as Gremio
- 1941 So Ends Our Night as Leopold Potzloch
- 1931 A Tailor-Made Man as Huber
- 1936 Crime Over London as Mr. Sherwood / Reilly
- 1927 Very Confidential as Donald Allen
- 1935 Gold Diggers of 1935 as August Schultz
- 1929 Speakeasy as Yokel
- 1933 Grand Slam as Alex Alexandrovitch
- 1930 The Princess and the Plumber as Merkl
- 1934 The Human Side as Fritz Speigal
- 1927 Two Girls Wanted as Philip Hancock
- 1933 Made on Broadway as Maxie Schultz
- 1935 Beautiful Dreamer
- 1927 The Secret Studio as Pa Merton
