Joseph Cawthorn

Acting

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.

Filmography Movies

Acting

MOVIE

Blondie Johnson

5.9(0.0K)

A Depression-downtrodden waif uses her brains instead of her body to rise from tyro con artist to crime boss.

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Blondie Johnson

Jewelry Store Manager (as Joe Cawthorn)

MOVIE

The Postman Didn't Ring

7.0(0.0K)

Stolen way back in 1880, a sack of United States mail is discovered in an old attic in 1942. The letters are finally delivered, profoundly affecting the lives of the recipients.

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The Postman Didn't Ring

Silas Harwood

MOVIE

Dixiana

5.0(0.0K)

A circus performer falls in love with the son of a plantation owner in antebellum New Orleans. When the young man's stepmother objects to the wedding, the couple break apart and go their separate ways for a time. Also in the mix are two circus comics who feud over the heart of another Southern belle.

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Dixiana

Cornelius Van Horn, Carl's Father

MOVIE

Love Me Tonight

6.6(0.1K)

A Parisian tailor goes to a château to collect a bill, only to fall for an aloof young princess living there.

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Love Me Tonight

Dr. Armand de Fontinac

MOVIE

White Zombie

6.0(0.3K)

A wealthy landowner living in Haiti convinces a sorcerer to lure the woman he has fallen for away from her fiancé. The madman later betrays their agreement by keeping the woman for himself…as a zombie.

The Great Ziegfeld

6.3(0.1K)

At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, sideshow barker Florenz Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more-successful neighbor Billings, and also steals his girlfriend. This pattern repeats throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever-bigger, more spectacular shows

Sweet Adeline

6.8(0.0K)

In 1898, composer Sid Barnett manages to get his sweetheart, Adeline the beer-garden singer, to sing the lead in his new Broadway operetta; this infuriates Elysia, the erstwhile star. But Sid frets as Adeline spends increasing amounts of time with the dashing Major Day.

Naughty Marietta

5.4(0.0K)

In order to avoid a prearranged marriage, a rebellious French princess sheds her identity and escapes to colonial New Orleans, where she finds an unlikely true love.

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Naughty Marietta

Herr 'Schumie' Schuman

MOVIE

Best of Enemies

9.0(0.0K)

Buddy Rogers and Marian Nixon playing the grown children of feuding German-Americans Frank Morgan and Joseph Cawthorn. Romance blossoms between Rogers and Nixon, while Morgan and Cawthorn continue muttering Teutonic imprecations at one another.

Peach-o-Reno

6.5(0.0K)

After a quarrel at their 25th wedding anniversary, Joe and Aggie Bruno decide to divorce each other, and both leave for Reno. So do their daughters Prudence and Pansy, but they want to get their parents back together. Joe and Aggie, accidentally, are becoming clients at the same law-firm, Wattles and Swift, which is the biggest and most successful in town.

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Peach-o-Reno

Joe Bruno