Bothwell Browne (born Walter Bothwell Bruhn; 1877â€"1947) was a Danish
American stage and film performer, best known as a female
impersonator.Born in Copenhagen, Browne grew up in San Francisco and
developed a vaudeville act. At one point he was performing as a duo
with male impersonator Kathleen Clifford. He was in New York by 1908,
when The New York Times reports him as suing Texas Guinan over the
rights to a Gibson Girl stage act.Deliberately or not, Browne competed
with the better-known female impersonator Julian Eltinge. Some
audiences and theater managers found his act more seductive and
therefore more unsettling than Eltinge. Browne's Broadway production
Miss Jack opened in September 1911 at the Herald Square Theater,
exactly one week before Eltinge's more successful The Fascinating
Widow.Browne's only film appearance is the 1919 Mack Sennett
production Yankee Doodle in Berlin, Sennett's highest-budget film up
to that point, and a bit of World War I propaganda. This release was
parallel to Eltinge's anti-German film Over the Rhine (re-cut into The
Isle of Love three years later).
American stage and film performer, best known as a female
impersonator.Born in Copenhagen, Browne grew up in San Francisco and
developed a vaudeville act. At one point he was performing as a duo
with male impersonator Kathleen Clifford. He was in New York by 1908,
when The New York Times reports him as suing Texas Guinan over the
rights to a Gibson Girl stage act.Deliberately or not, Browne competed
with the better-known female impersonator Julian Eltinge. Some
audiences and theater managers found his act more seductive and
therefore more unsettling than Eltinge. Browne's Broadway production
Miss Jack opened in September 1911 at the Herald Square Theater,
exactly one week before Eltinge's more successful The Fascinating
Widow.Browne's only film appearance is the 1919 Mack Sennett
production Yankee Doodle in Berlin, Sennett's highest-budget film up
to that point, and a bit of World War I propaganda. This release was
parallel to Eltinge's anti-German film Over the Rhine (re-cut into The
Isle of Love three years later).
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