Joseph Jefferson
actor, writer
- Born:
- 1829-02-20, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Died:
- 1905-04-23, Palm Beach, Florida, USA
- Professions:
- actor, writer
Biography
For three-quarters of a century, audiences followed the same face from candle-lit wings to flickering celluloid: Joseph Jefferson III, heir to a stage dynasty that had already worn the name twice before. He first stepped into the footlights as a Philadelphia tot and, at 76, was still timing comic beats that had outlasted presidents. From 1865 onward he never bothered to mint another character; instead he polished Washington Irving’s sleepyheads into an American archetype, carrying Rip Van Winkle from gaslit New York to gold-rush San Francisco and, later, into three early silent films. Night after night, decade after decade, Jefferson strolled onstage, shouldered the rusted rifle, and let the 20-year mountain nap begin again.
