David Warfield

Warfield, David [né Wollfeld or Wohlfelt] (1866–1951), character actor. The San Francisco–born performer began his theatrical career as an usher at the city's Bush Street Theatre, later advancing to a super and a bit player. By the 1890s he had moved to New York, where he soon became a favorite of audiences at the Casino Theatre and then with Weber and Fields, portraying comic, usually long‐bearded, Jews. He was surprised when David Belasco (whom he knew from his San Francisco days) approached him to star in a more serious role, the Lower East Side peddler and auctioneer Simon Levi in The Auctioneer (1901). Warfield triumphed in the role, as he did as Anton von Barwig in The Music Master (1904). He played the part for three years, then appeared as the aging Civil War veteran Wes Bigelow in A Grand Army Man (1907). Another major success was his portrayal of the title role in The Return of Peter Grimm (1911). The Times hailed the performance of the stocky, square‐faced actor as “tremendously appealing, tender, and natural,” continuing, “His playing is marked throughout by directness, simplicity, understanding, and the economy of means, which in combination spell the great art of acting.” For the next eleven years he played in this and in revivals of his earlier successes, but when he decided to retire at the height of his fame in 1922 he essayed the one last role he was determined to play, Shylock. Critics were divided, and though he toured with the work for two seasons it was one of his rare commercial failures.

David Warfield
Born	November 28, 1866 San Francisco, California, USA
Died	July 27, 1951 (age 84) New York, New York, USA
Years active	ca. 1888-1930

David Warfield (November 28, 1866 – July 27, 1951) was an American stage actor, born in San Francisco, California. His first connection with the theatre was as an usher. He made his first stage appearance in 1888 in The Ticket-of-Leave Man. Two years later he went to New York City, where he appeared at the Casino Theatre and at Weber and Field's Music Hall. In 1901 he was discovered and promoted by David Belasco who starred him in The Auctioneer, in which he played 1,400 times, including a revival that extended over several seasons. He remained under the Belasco management. One of his best-known roles was that of Anton von Barwig in The Music Master, which he played from 1904 to 1907, appearing in the part more than 1000 times. He created the title role in The Return of Peter Grimm in 1911. Warfield's position as a leading American actor in comedy was established by the masterly style in which he portrayed, in each of these plays, a kindly old gentleman who is pathetic in misfortune and amusingly eccentric. In 1916 he appeared in Van der Decken, a play by Belasco, based on the legend of The Flying Dutchman.

Warfield, who at the time was one of the world's richest entertainers, died in New York City, at 84.^[1]

References

1. ^ "Milestones". Time magazine. 09 Jul 1951. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806150,00.html. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. 

External links

• David Warfield at the Internet Broadway Database
• David Warfield at Find-A-Grave
• David Warfield at Emory College Shakespeare's World
• David Warfield photo gallery at NYP Library

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

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