Joseph Cawthorn
Encyclopedia
Joseph Cawthorn 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 show
s and vaudeville
as a "Dutch" comic, employing a thick German dialect. He later worked in British music hall
s 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.
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 show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s and vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
as a "Dutch" comic, employing a thick German dialect. He later worked in British music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
s 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
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's 1898 operetta The Fortune Teller
The Fortune Teller (operetta)
The Fortune Teller is an operetta in three acts written by Victor Herbert, with a libretto by Harry B. Smith. After a brief tryout in Toronto, it premiered on Broadway on September 26, 1898 at Wallack's Theatre and ran for 40 performances...
. 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
Whiffenpoof
The word whiffenpoof can refer to:* an imaginary or indefinite animal; e.g. "the great-horned whiffenpoof;"* a device used for tracking exercises;...
" on the spot. Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
students in the audience appropriated it for the name of their glee club
The Whiffenpoofs
The Yale Whiffenpoofs are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the United States, established in 1909. Best known for "The Whiffenpoof Song", based on a tune written by Tod Galloway and adapted with lyrics by Meade Minnigerode & George S Pomeroy , the group comprises college...
.
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
The Taming of the Shrew (1929 film)
The Taming of the Shrew is the first sound film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name. It stars Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks.-Cast:*Mary Pickford as Katherine*Douglas Fairbanks as Petruchio...
in 1929, starring Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
; Schultz in Gold Diggers of 1935
Gold Diggers of 1935
Gold Diggers of 1935 is a Warner Bros. musical film directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley and starring Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Adolphe Menjou, Winifred Shaw, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh...
; and Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
's father in The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
(1936).
Cawthorn died peacefully on January 21, 1949. He was survived by his wife, actress Queenie Vassar.
Partial filmography
- SpeakeasySpeakeasy (1929 film)__notoc__Speakeasy was an early talking sports drama film directed by Benjamin Stoloff and adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan and Edwin J. Burke. The picture was produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation. Lola Lane and Paul Page played the lead roles. John Wayne, age 22, had a minor role...
(1929) - Street GirlStreet GirlStreet Girl is a musical comedy/drama film directed by Wesley Ruggles and released by RKO Radio Pictures, it's the first official production of RKO but was released soon after Syncopation the second production of RKO.-Plot summary:...
(1929) - The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew (1929 film)The Taming of the Shrew is the first sound film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name. It stars Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks.-Cast:*Mary Pickford as Katherine*Douglas Fairbanks as Petruchio...
(1929) - DixianaDixianaDixiana is a lavish American musical film directed by Luther Reed produced by RKO Radio Pictures. The final third of the picture was photographed in Technicolor.The movie was adapted by Luther Reed from a story by Anne Caldwell....
(1930) - Kiki (1931)
- White ZombieWhite Zombie (film)White Zombie is a 1932 American independent Pre-Code horror film directed and produced by brothers Victor Halperin and Edward Halperin, respectively. The screenplay by Garnett Weston tells the story of a young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Béla Lugosi...
(1932) - Love Me TonightLove Me TonightLove Me Tonight is a 1932 musical comedy film produced and directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with music by Rodgers and Hart. It stars Maurice Chevalier as a tailor who poses as a nobleman and Jeanette MacDonald as a princess with whom he falls in love...
(1932) - They Call It Sin (1932)
- Whistling in the DarkWhistling in the Dark (1933 film)Whistling in the Dark is a 1933 comedy crime film starring Ernest Truex as a murder mystery writer whose scheme for a perfect murder comes to the attention of a gangster, played by Edward Arnold, who decides to use it...
(1933) - Blondie JohnsonBlondie JohnsonBlondie Johnson is a 1933 Warner Bros. drama film directed by Ray Enright. It stars Chester Morris and Joan Blondell.-Plot:Set during the Great Depression, Blondie Johnson quits her job after a co-worker sexually harasses her. She next is evicted with her sick mother, but cannot get relief. After...
(1933) - The Cat and the Fiddle (1934)
- GlamourGlamour (1934 film)Glamour is a 1934 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Paul Lukas, Constance Cummings and Phillip Reed. An ambitious chorus girl marries an up-and-coming composer.-Cast:* Paul Lukas ... Victor Banki...
(1934) - Twenty Million SweetheartsTwenty Million SweetheartsTwenty Million Sweethearts is a 1934 American musical comedy film directed by Ray Enright. The film stars Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers.The film was remade in 1949, starring Doris Day and Jack Carson as My Dream Is Yours.-Plot:...
(1934) - HousewifeHousewife (film)Housewife is a 1934 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green. The screenplay by Manuel Seff and Lillie Hayward is based on a story by Hayward and Robert Lord.-Plot:...
(1934) - Young and BeautifulYoung and Beautiful (film)Young and Beautiful is a romantic comedy film about a press agent who goes to great lengths to make his actress girlfriend a star, only to risk losing her in the process...
(1934) - Music in the AirMusic in the Air (film)Music in the Air is a 1934 romantic comedy musical film based on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Broadway musical of the same name. It stars Gloria Swanson as a opera diva, John Boles as her librettist and Douglass Montgomery as an aspiring songwriter who stumbles into their stormy...
(1934) - Sweet Adeline (1934)
- Lazy RiverLazy River (film)-Cast:* Jean Parker as Sarah Lescalle* Robert Young as William 'Bill' Drexel* Ted Healy as William 'Gabby' Stone* Nat Pendleton as Alfred 'Tiny' Smith* C. Henry Gordon as Sam Kee* Ruth Channing as Ruby Drexel* Maude Eburne as Miss Minnie Lescalle...
(1934) - Naughty Marietta (1935)
- Gold Diggers of 1935Gold Diggers of 1935Gold Diggers of 1935 is a Warner Bros. musical film directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley and starring Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Adolphe Menjou, Winifred Shaw, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh...
(1935) - Page Miss Glory (1935)
- Bright LightsBright Lights (1935 film)Bright Lights is a 1935 film directed by Busby Berkeley....
(1935) - Harmony LaneHarmony LaneHarmony Lane is a 1935 American film directed by Joseph Santley, being based upon the life of Stephen Foster.- Cast :*Douglass Montgomery as Stephen Foster*Evelyn Venable as Susan Pentland*Adrienne Ames as Jane McDowell...
(1935) - The Great ZiegfeldThe Great ZiegfeldThe Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
(1936) - One Rainy AfternoonOne Rainy AfternoonOne Rainy Afternoon is a 1936 romantic comedy film directed by Rowland V. Lee, starring Francis Lederer and Ida Lupino and featuring Hugh Herbert, Roland Young and Erik Rhodes...
(1936) - Lillian RussellLillian Russell (film)Lillian Russell is a 1940 biographical film of the life of the singer and actress. The screenplay was by William Anthony McGuire. The film was directed by Irving Cummings and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It starred Alice Faye in the title role, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda and Edward Arnold as Diamond...
(1940) - So Ends Our NightSo Ends Our NightSo Ends Our Night is a 1941 drama war film starring Fredric March and directed by John Cromwell.- Plot :The story takes place in Germany during the Third Reich, when Hitler started to invade countries and persecuting to Jews and opponents of his regime...
(1941)