Joseph Cotten

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Joseph Cotten with wife Patricia Medina in 1973

Joseph Cheshire Cotten (born May 15, 1905 in Petersburg , Virginia , † February 6, 1994 in Palm Springs , California ) was an American actor . He reached the peak of his career in the 1940s with leading roles in films such as Citizen Kane (1941), The Splendor of the Amberson House (1942), In the Shadow of Doubt (1943), Duel in the Sun (1946) and The Third Man (1949).

Career

Joseph Cotten was born in Virginia, one of three sons of a postal worker. After a few years as a journalist for various magazines and journals, he worked as a stage actor from the early 1930s. In the middle of the decade he joined Orson Welles and his theater project Mercury Theater and appeared in his production of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar . The climax of his stage career he had next to Katharine Hepburn in Philip Barry's comedy The Philadelphia Story .

Cotten went to Hollywood with Welles , where he played an important role in his directorial debut Citizen Kane in 1941 . In the role of a loyal companion of Charles Foster Kane portrayed by Welles, Cotten won over the critics and began a successful career as an actor in romantic melodramas. In the same year he was to be seen alongside Merle Oberon in A woman's heart never forgets . The following year, he was overshadowed by many setbacks production of Welles' second directorial effort, The Magnificent Ambersons , busy. In addition to Dolores del Río, he also worked in the spy thriller Hunted by agents with, which Welles could only end with many compromises. Perhaps his best role, however, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the thriller In the Shadow of Doubt as a murderer who visits his family in a small town and almost murders his niece.

Cotten and Patricia Medina, 1973

Cotten's Hollywood career was cemented when he signed a contract with David O. Selznick . Within a few years, the tall actor rose to become one of the most sought-after actors in dramatic love films and starred alongside some of the biggest female stars of the decade. In 1943 he starred alongside Deanna Durbin in Hers to Hold , and shortly thereafter, as a mysterious stranger, saved Ingrid Bergman, threatened by madness, in the George Cukor film Lady Alquist's house at the last second. In 1944 he worked for the first time with director William Dieterle , who got some of the best performances out of Cotten over the next few years. The project was I'll Be Seeing You , in which Ginger Rogers, as a young woman with secrets, has to fight for her happiness and against prejudice. A few months later Cotten was seen as a secret admirer of Claudette Colbert in the very successful home front strip When you said goodbye to John Cromwell . One of the greatest commercial successes of Cotten's career was love letters , again directed by Dieterle; The film was released in 1945 and presented him as a soldier writing romantic letters under a false name to a young woman, played by Jennifer Jones . Sudden amnesia in Jones causes both of them to survive a number of entanglements before they can find each other.

A certain change was the role in the western Duel in der Sonne , which in 1946 made for full coffers and because of its open portrayal of sex, violence and racial hatred caused problems with the censors. Cotten had one of his best-known roles in the political comedy The Farmer's Daughter , which brought Loretta Young an Oscar in 1947 for her portrayal of a Swedish-born domestic worker with a congressman, who ultimately won a seat in the US Congress. Towards the end of the decade, Cotten directed the love story Jenny, directed by Dieterle and again alongside Jennifer Jones and Ethel Barrymore, and played the lead role in The Third Man , directed by Carol Reed . Later that year, Cotten worked again with Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman in the drama Slave of the Heart , but the film was a financial failure. Hardly more successful was the collaboration with King Vidor in The Sting of Evil , in which he played the tormented husband of Bette Davis , who drove him to despair with her antics, abortions and adultery. He celebrated another success under the guidance of Dieterle alongside Joan Fontaine in Liebesrausch auf Capri , which was released in cinemas at the end of 1950.

In the 1950s, the most successful part of Cotten's career was over, but he remained a busy character actor in film and television for the decades that followed. Among other things, he was seen in 1953 as the husband of Marilyn Monroe in the thriller Niagara and in 1964 as the devious doctor of Bette Davis in Lullaby for a Corpse . He continued to work as a stage actor and appeared on Broadway in successful plays such as Sabrina Fair . In the later years of his life he was mostly used as a supporting actor, for example in the science fiction thriller ... year 2022 ... who want to survive (1973) or as a university pastor in Michael Cimino's late-western Heaven's Gate (1980). He has also made guest appearances on television series such as Your Appearance, Al Mundy , The People at Shiloh Ranch , Detective Rockford - Just Call , The Streets of San Francisco and Love Boat . In the summer of 1981 Cotten suffered a heart attack and a little later a stroke that temporarily impaired his language center. He then retired from acting.

Private life

Joseph Cotten was married to Lenore Kipp from 1931 until her death in 1960. In his second marriage, he was married to actress Patricia Medina from 1960 until his death . In 1987 he published his autobiography Vanity Will Get You Somewhere . Cotten also made a name for himself through his long-standing argument with columnist Hedda Hopper , who claimed in 1943 that he had an affair with Deanna Durbin while filming Hers to Hold . Cotten reciprocated by sending Hopper a beautiful present basket in which a dead skunk lay draped on a silk pillow. In 1994 he died of lung cancer at the age of 88 .

Awards

Despite his involvement in many classic films and recognition as a good actor by critics, Joseph Cotten was never nominated for an Oscar . At the Venice International Film Festival , he was named Best Actor for his role in Jenny . Cotten also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film work .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Joseph Cotten  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography of Joseph Cotten
  2. ^ Obituary for Joseph Cotten in the Los Angeles Times
personal data
SURNAME Cotten, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cotten, Joseph Cheshire (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Petersburg , Virginia , USA
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1994
Place of death Palm Springs , California