Whitford Kane (born Thomas Wheeler Kane, January 30, 1881 â€" December
17, 1956) was a noted Irish-born American stage and screen character
actor remembered for playing the First Gravedigger in numerous
productions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and by the students that attended
his drama classes over a career that spanned nearly six decades. By
the end of his long career, Whitford Kane's theatre credits had grown
to fill three columns in John Parker's Who's Who in the Theatre.Kane
was born on January 30, 1881 in Larne, a seaport on the east coast of
County Antrim, Ireland (today a part of Northern Ireland), to Dr. John
Kane and the former Isabella Whiteford. He first took to the stage in
Belfast while in his early 20s, and by 1910 was performing on the
London stage. Kane's first known Broadway performance, the idle
inventor, Daniel Murray, in Rutherford Mayne's comedy, The Drone, came
in 1912, the year he immigrated to America. He would go on to be
involved in some fifty-six Broadway productions over a near
fifty-three year acting career that only closed due to illness as he
neared the end of his life.Kane typically played character roles often
described as likable and benign. Theatre critic Brooks Atkinson wrote
of Kane's performance as Dr. Wilson in John Steinbeck's 1942 play, The
Moon Is Down, "As the benign village doctor, Whitford Kane, one of the
best pipe-smokers on the stage, presides in cheerful humor." He played
the First Gravedigger in 23 productions of Hamlet, supporting such
actors as John Barrymore, Maurice Evans, Walter Hampden and Godfrey
Tearle. When asked why he played in so many Shakespearean productions,
Kane replied, "It's saved my bacon a good many times. The old
gravedigger has fed me better than any other part. I earn my eats by
Shakespeare; thank God it's always coming up."Whitford Kane appeared
in a handful of films over the 1930s and 40s, the most memorable
probably being The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) starring Fredric
March, and the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, in which he played
the publisher Mr. Sproule. His career extended into the early years of
television where the "round little man with a plum for a nose, a plump
chin and ruddy full-blown cheeks" was one Christmas Eve called upon to
play Santa Claus. Kane was a member of the cast that appeared in the
very early NBC 1939 Teleplay, The Streets of New York and the 1954
Hallmark Hall of Fame production of King Richard II that was adapted
for television by Maurice Evans.
17, 1956) was a noted Irish-born American stage and screen character
actor remembered for playing the First Gravedigger in numerous
productions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and by the students that attended
his drama classes over a career that spanned nearly six decades. By
the end of his long career, Whitford Kane's theatre credits had grown
to fill three columns in John Parker's Who's Who in the Theatre.Kane
was born on January 30, 1881 in Larne, a seaport on the east coast of
County Antrim, Ireland (today a part of Northern Ireland), to Dr. John
Kane and the former Isabella Whiteford. He first took to the stage in
Belfast while in his early 20s, and by 1910 was performing on the
London stage. Kane's first known Broadway performance, the idle
inventor, Daniel Murray, in Rutherford Mayne's comedy, The Drone, came
in 1912, the year he immigrated to America. He would go on to be
involved in some fifty-six Broadway productions over a near
fifty-three year acting career that only closed due to illness as he
neared the end of his life.Kane typically played character roles often
described as likable and benign. Theatre critic Brooks Atkinson wrote
of Kane's performance as Dr. Wilson in John Steinbeck's 1942 play, The
Moon Is Down, "As the benign village doctor, Whitford Kane, one of the
best pipe-smokers on the stage, presides in cheerful humor." He played
the First Gravedigger in 23 productions of Hamlet, supporting such
actors as John Barrymore, Maurice Evans, Walter Hampden and Godfrey
Tearle. When asked why he played in so many Shakespearean productions,
Kane replied, "It's saved my bacon a good many times. The old
gravedigger has fed me better than any other part. I earn my eats by
Shakespeare; thank God it's always coming up."Whitford Kane appeared
in a handful of films over the 1930s and 40s, the most memorable
probably being The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) starring Fredric
March, and the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, in which he played
the publisher Mr. Sproule. His career extended into the early years of
television where the "round little man with a plum for a nose, a plump
chin and ruddy full-blown cheeks" was one Christmas Eve called upon to
play Santa Claus. Kane was a member of the cast that appeared in the
very early NBC 1939 Teleplay, The Streets of New York and the 1954
Hallmark Hall of Fame production of King Richard II that was adapted
for television by Maurice Evans.
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