John Willard (November 28, 1885 – August 30, 1942) was an American playwright, 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 with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, 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) ...

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 a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and ...

and

Paulette Goddard Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress notable for her film career in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in Manhattan and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career ...

) and in 1979 (by

Radley Metzger Radley Metzger (also known as Radley Henry Metzger, Radley H. Metzger and by the pseudonyms, "Jake Barnes", "Erich Farina" and "Henry Paris") (January 21, 1929 – March 31, 2017) was an American pioneering filmmaker and film distributor, mos ...

). 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 (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, 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'' 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 Minerva Bussenius (September 22, 1896 – August 27, 1966), known professionally as Roberta Arnold, was an American stage and silent film actress. She started in Los Angeles before moving to New York, appeared in leading roles in several Broadwa ...

. 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