Bothwell Browne (born Walter Bothwell Bruhn;(March 7, 1877 - December 12, 1947)was a Danish American stage and film performer, best known as a female impersonator. [1]
Bothwell Browne (born Walter Bothwell Bruhn;(March 7, 1877 - December 12, 1947)was a Danish American stage and film performer, best known as a female impersonator. [1]
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Browne grew up in San Francisco. [2] and developed a vaudeville act. At one point he was performing as a duo with male impersonator Kathleen Clifford. [3]
Around 1900 he began performing with the Cohan and Harris Minstrels, and in 1908 made his New York debut in Winning the Gibson Girl, playing the title role, impersonating a Gibson Girl. [4]
Deliberately or not, Browne competed with the better-known female impersonator Julian Eltinge, who had pioneered the art form in early cinema. [5]
Some audiences and theater managers found Browne's interpretations more seductive and therefore more unsettling than Eltinge. [3] 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 . In 1910, Browne enjoyed a major stage success with The Pantaloon Girl, in which he offered five different impersonations.
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. Miss Jack was a disappointment, and closed after just sixteen performances. [6]
Browne's one and 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). [7]
Browne appears in the role of American World War I combat pilot Captain Bob White who crosses, and cross-dresses, into enemy German lines, managing to wreak havoc among the enemy military high command. [8] [9] The film was promoted in touring road shows that included members of Sennett’s bathing beauties and cast members, including Browne. [10] [11]
In December of the same year, Browne appeared as the headliner at the Palace Theater in New York, the single most sought-after booking in American vaudeville. [12] supported on stage by the Sennett Bathing Beauties. This appears to be the pinnacle of his career. He thereafter retired to teach dancing classes and produce night-club acts in San Francisco. [13]
Bothwell Browne died in Los Angeles on December 12, 1947, age 70. [14]
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor, and studio head who was known as the "King of Comedy" during his career.
Female impersonation is a type of theatrical performance where a man dresses in women's clothing for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience. While the term female impersonator is sometimes used interchangeably with drag queen, they are not the same. Drag as an art form is associated with queer identity whereas female impersonation may come from a wide a range of gender identity paradigms, including heteronormativity. Additionally, many drag artists view drag as a lived form of self-expression or creativity, and perceive drag as something that is not limited to the stage or to performance. In contrast, female impersonation is specifically limited to performance and may or may not involve an LGBTQI point of view.
Julian Eltinge, born William Julian Dalton, was an American stage and film actor and female impersonator. After appearing in the Boston Cadets Revue at the age of ten in feminine garb, Eltinge garnered notice from producers and made his first appearance on Broadway in 1904. As his star began to rise, he appeared in vaudeville and toured Europe and the United States, even giving a command performance before King Edward VII. Eltinge appeared in a series of musical comedies written specifically for his talents starting in 1910 with The Fascinating Widow, returning to vaudeville in 1918. His popularity soon earned him the moniker "Mr. Lillian Russell" for the popular beauty and musical comedy star.
Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California on July 4, 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from actor-writer Adam Kessel (1866–1946) and Charles O. Baumann (1874–1931), owners of the New York Motion Picture Company. The company, referred to at its office as The Keystone Film Company, filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake, Los Angeles for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915. The Keystone film brand declined rapidly after Sennett went independent in 1917.
The Goat is a 1921 American two-reel silent comedy film written, and co-directed by Malcolm St. Clair and Buster Keaton and starring Keaton.
Kathleen Clifford was an American vaudeville and Broadway stage and film actress of the early twentieth century. She was known for her skills as a male impersonator.
A Social Celebrity is a 1926 American silent comedy drama film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starred Louise Brooks as a small town manicurist who goes to New York City with her boyfriend, a barber who poses as a French count. The film is now considered lost.
Evelyn Francisco was an American silent era film actress who began as a bathing beauty. Her sisters Betty and Margaret Francisco were also actresses.
Eddie Lyons was an American film actor, director, writer, and producer of the silent era. He appeared in 388, directed 153, wrote for 93, and produced 40 films between 1911 and 1926. He was born in Beardstown, Illinois, and died in Pasadena, California. Lyons was often paired with actor Lee Moran and the two made several comedic films together.
Ora Carew, was an American silent film actress. She starred in several films between 1915 and 1925. She was known as one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties.
Yankee Doodle in Berlin is a 1919 American silent comedy and World War I film from producer Mack Sennett. A five-reel feature, it was Sennett's most expensive production up to that time. Hiram Abrams was the original State's Rights marketer before the film's release, but producer Sol Lesser bought the rights in March 1919.
Richard Smith, also known as Dick Smith, was a screenwriter, actor, and film director. Smith was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and became a comedian active in the vaudeville era. He met his wife Alice Howell in 1910 and the two performed together as Howell and Howell. After working under direction of Mack Sennett at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, Smith moved to Los Angeles, California. Smith and his wife starred in reels together produced by L-KO Kompany.
Hollywood Cavalcade is a 1939 American film featuring Alice Faye as a young performer making her way in the early days of Hollywood, from slapstick silent pictures through the transition from silent to sound.
George Francis Peduzzi, known professionally as Karyl Norman, was an American female impersonator who was popular in vaudeville, nightclubs, and on Broadway in the 1920s.
Find Your Man is a 1924 American silent action/ melodrama film starring Rin Tin Tin and June Marlowe. It was directed by Mal St. Clair who persuaded Warner Bros. to hire his friend, Darryl F. Zanuck, to write the screenplay; this began a long association between Zanuck and Rin Tin Tin. Filming took place in Klamath Falls, Oregon. This film survives. It was transferred onto 16mm film by Associated Artists Productions in the 1950s and shown on television.
My Valet is a 1915 short comedy film written, produced, and directed by Mack Sennett and starring Raymond Hitchcock, Sennett, and Mabel Normand. The film was released by the Keystone Film Company and Triangle Distributing with a running time of 33 minutes. It was released on November 7, 1915 in the United States. A print exists.
The Fleet's In is a 1928 American silent comedy film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and written by Monte Brice, George Marion Jr., and J. Walter Ruben. The film stars Clara Bow, James Hall, Jack Oakie, Bodil Rosing, Eddie Dunn, and Jean Laverty. The film was released on September 15, 1928, by Paramount Pictures.
Young as You Feel is a 1940 American comedy film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starring Jed Prouty, Spring Byington and Joan Valerie. It was part of Twentieth Century Fox's Jones Family series of films. The film's plot was similar to that of the 1931 film Young as You Feel.
Swing Out the Blues is a 1944 American romantic comedy film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starring Bob Haymes, Lynn Merrick, and Janis Carter. It was released on May 22, 1938.
Maid to Order is a 1931 American comedy crime film directed by Elmer Clifton from a story by Doris Dembow and A. J. L. Parsons. The film featured songs from Jack Stone, Fred Thompson and George Beauchamp. Julian Eltinge, who plays the lead role, was a well-known female impersonator.
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