![]() The play ran for 417 performances at the Shubert Theatre, and in the months before its extensive national tour a film version was to be made by MGM. Dexter Haven opposite Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord in the original production of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story. Ĭotten returned to Broadway in 1939, creating the role of C. The film was never screened in public and was lost until 2008 (and then screened in 2013 at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival). That same year Cotten made his film debut in the Welles-directed short, Too Much Johnson (1938), a comedy that was intended to complement the aborted 1938 Mercury stage production of William Gillette's 1894 play. Cotten also performed in radio dramas presented on The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse. He followed it with The Shoemaker's Holiday (1938) and Danton's Death (1938) for Welles. In 1937, Cotten became an inaugural member of Welles's Mercury Theatre company, starring in its Broadway productions Caesar as Publius it ran for 157 performances. But as a star, I think you well might hit the jackpot." But these are fringe assets, and I'm afraid you'll never make it as an actor. ![]() You can also move about the stage without running into the furniture. : 34 Cotten said Welles later told him "You're very lucky to be tall and thin and have curly hair. : 334 Cotten was sure that Horse Eats Hat won him the notice of his future Broadway co-star, Katharine Hepburn. : 30–31 Welles regarded Cotten as a brilliant comic actor, : 166 and gave him the starring role in his Federal Theatre Project farce, Horse Eats Hat : 34 (September 26 – December 5, 1936). In 1934, Cotten met and became friends with Orson Welles, a fellow cast member on CBS Radio's The American School of the Air. He was in Loose Moments which ran for 8 performances. He followed it with Jezebel (1933), staged by Katherine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic, which only had a short run. Cotten made his Broadway debut in 1932 in Absent Friends which ran for 88 performances. Cotten struggled to find work in the depression so turned to modeling under the Walter Thornton Model Agency and acting in industrial films. He understudied Melvyn Douglas in Tonight or Never then took over Douglas' role for the Copley Theatre in Boston, where he worked on over 30 plays. Career 1932–1939: Broadway and film debuts Ĭotten moved to New York and went to work for David Belasco as an assistant stage manager. He started performing at the Miami Civic Theatre, and worked there for five years, also reviewing the shows for the Herald. : 4–7 He moved to Miami in 1925 and worked as an advertising salesman for The Miami Herald at $35 a week. After graduation, he earned enough money as a lifeguard at Wilcox Lake to pay back his family's loan, with interest. ![]() Ĭotten earned spending money playing professional football on Sundays, for $25 a quarter. Cotten served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. In 1923, when Cotten was 18, his family arranged for him to receive private lessons at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington, D.C., and underwrote his expenses. : 224 He grew up in the Tidewater region and showed an aptitude for drama and a gift for storytelling. Joseph Cotten was born in 1905 in Petersburg, Virginia, the first of three boys born for Joseph Cheshire Cotten Sr., an assistant postmaster, and Sally Willson Cotten. Harlow Shapley Cotten and Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun (1946) From left: Van Wyck Brooks, Hannah Dorner, Jo Davidson, Jan Kiepura, Cotten, Dorothy Gish, Dr. Members of the Independent Voters Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt visit FDR at the White House (October 1944). Early life Joseph Cotten modeled for The American Magazine (September 1931) Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited him as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. One of his final films was Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980). ![]() He then gained worldwide fame for his collaborations with Orson Welles on three films, Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), which Cotten starred in and for which he was also credited with the screenplay.Ĭotten went on to become one of the leading Hollywood actors of the 1940s, appearing in films such as Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Gaslight (1944), Love Letters (1945), Duel in the Sun (1946), Portrait of Jennie (1948) for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, The Third Man (1949) and Niagara (1953). Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story (1939) and Sabrina Fair (1953). (– February 6, 1994) was an American film, stage, radio and television actor.
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