John Willard (November 28, 1885 – August 30, 1942) was an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

, screenwriter, and actor.

Biography

Willard's most famous work is '' The Cat and the Canary'' (1922), which was made into the influential

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

of the same name in 1927. Also, the work was filmed in 1930, in 1939 (starring

Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared ...

and

Paulette Goddard Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress and socialite. Her career spanned six decades, from the 1920s to the early 1970s. She was a prominent leading actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood ...

) and in 1979 (by

Radley Metzger Radley Metzger (January 21, 1929 – March 31, 2017) was an American filmmaker and film distributor, most noted for popular artistic pornographic films, including '' Thérèse and Isabelle'' (1968), '' Camille 2000'' (1969), '' The Lickerish ...

). Willard also co-wrote '' The Blue Flame'' (1920) with George V. Hobart. Willard worked as a miner and a reporter, and he was also a published novelist. He also appeared as one of the actors in the Broadway production of ''The Cat and the Canary''. His other acting on Broadway began with ''George Washington, Jr.'' (1906) and ended with ''

The Mikado ''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan, operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, whe ...

'' (1936). He was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, a son of portrait painter

John Willard Clawson John Willard "Will" Clawson (January 18, 1858 – April 6, 1936) was an American, Utah-based artist, in the late-19th and early 20th-century. Biography Clawson was born to Hiram B. Clawson and his wife, the former Alice Young. Alice was a dau ...

and Mary Alice Clawson. Born Willard Wesley Clawson, and known locally as Wesley Clawson, he began his career as a baritone singer and actor. His performance in ''

Pagliacci ''Pagliacci'' (; literal translation, 'Clowns') is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who mu ...

'' secured him a contract to sing baritone solos with Oscar Hammerstein in New York. He was married to Gladys Caldwell and later to actress Roberta Arnold. During World War I he was a captain in the United States Army Air Corps, and flew bombing runs over German machine-gun sites. He died in 1942 of a heart attack at Hollywood Hospital.

References

External links

* * 1885 births 1942 deaths Writers from San Francisco 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male actors American male stage actors Male actors from San Francisco {{US-dramatist-stub