Joseph Cawthorn

Acting Mar 27, 1868 Jan 21, 1949 (aged 81) New York City, New York, USA

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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.

53 Acting Credits

Joseph Cawthorn

Acting

White Zombie

The Great Ziegfeld

Love Me Tonight

Gold Diggers of 1935

Naughty Marietta

Blondie Johnson

The Taming of the Shrew

So Ends Our Night

Dixiana

One Rainy Afternoon

Housewife

Lillian Russell

They Call It Sin

Young and Beautiful

Street Girl

Jazz Heaven

Twenty Million Sweethearts

Page Miss Glory

Music in the Air

Bright Lights

Harmony Lane

Whistling in the Dark

Kiki

Dance Hall