10 Facts About Whitford Kane

Whitford Kane first took to the stage in Belfast while in his early 20s, and by 1910 was performing on the London stage.

Whitford Kane's first known Broadway performance, the idle inventor, Daniel Murray, in Rutherford Mayne's comedy, The Drone, came in 1912, the year he immigrated to America.

Whitford Kane would go on to be involved in some fifty-six Broadway productions over a near fifty-three year acting career that only closed due to illness as he neared the end of his life.

Whitford Kane typically played character roles often described as likable and benign.

Whitford Kane appeared in a handful of films over the 1930s and 40s, the most memorable probably being The Adventures of Mark Twain starring Fredric March, and the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs Muir, in which he played the publisher Mr Sproule.

Whitford Kane's career extended into the early years of television where the "round little man with a plum for a nose, a plump chin and ruddy full-blown cheeks" was one Christmas Eve called upon to play Santa Claus.

Whitford Kane was a member of the cast that appeared in the very early NBC 1939 Teleplay, The Streets of New York and the 1954 Hallmark Hall of Fame production of King Richard II that was adapted for television by Maurice Evans.

Some years later the two developed a close friendship with Whitford Kane becoming a key member of Welles's Mercury Theatre repertory company.

Whitford Kane died at the age of 75 on December 17,1956, in New York City.

Whitford Kane was survived by a brother and sister and his partner of over 25 years, actor Hiram Sherman.