Walter Hampden Dougherty (June 30, 1879 – June 11, 1955), known professionally as Walter Hampden, was an American actor and theatre manager. He was a major stage star on Broadway in New York who also made numerous television and film appearances.[citation needed]
John Garrett Underhill produced the first English-language version of The Bonds of Interest (Los intereses creados) by Jacinto Benavente, with Walter Hampden, in 1929.[7]
Hampden appeared in a few silent films, but did not really begin his film career in earnest until 1939, when he played the good Archdeacon (Frollo's brother) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. This was Hampden's first sound film; he was 60 at the time he made it. [citation needed]Several other roles followed—Jarvis Langdon in the 1944 film The Adventures of Mark Twain among them, but all were supporting character roles, not the lead roles that Hampden played onstage. He was the master of ceremonies at the Sarah Siddons Awards in All About Eve (1950), and he played the father of Humphrey Bogart and William Holden in Billy Wilder's 1954 comedy Sabrina. These last two films are arguably those for which Hampden is most well known to modern audiences.[citation needed] He also played long-bearded patriarchs in the Biblical epics The Silver Chalice (1954, as Joseph of Arimathea) and The Prodigal (1955).[citation needed]
Hampden reprised his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the first episode of the radio program Great Scenes from Great Plays, which Hampden hosted from 1948 to 1949. In addition to his radio roles (The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall), Hampden also appeared in several dramas during the early days of television. He made his TV debut in 1949, playing Macbeth for the last time at the age of 69. In 1951 he portrayed Captain Fairfax in a televised version of Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman's 1951 play Billy Budd for the anthology series Schlitz Playhouse of Stars.[8]
His ashes are buried at The Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[citation needed]
Personal life
Hampden married actress Mabel Carrie Moore on 17 July 1905. They had a son, Paul Hampden Dougherty, and a daughter, Mary Moore Dougherty.[citation needed]
^Great Stars of the American Stage, A Pictorial Record by Daniel Blum, Profile #61 c. 1952 (this 2nd edition c. 1954)
^"Archived copy"(PDF). engineering.nyu.edu. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 17, 2015. Retrieved January 17, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)