John Golden

John Lionel Golden (June 27, 1874 – June 17, 1955) was an American actor, songwriter, theatrical producer, and author whose career spanned several decades of Broadway history. Born in New York City, he grew up in Wauseon, Ohio before returning to New York at the age of fourteen. Golden briefly studied law at New York University and spent thirteen years working at a chemical manufacturing firm before turning to the theater.

Golden launched his career as a lyricist and composer around the turn of the twentieth century. Among his earliest credits was Miss Prinnt, a musical farce starring Marie Dressler that opened in New York in late 1900. He contributed lyrics to The Hoyden, a Charles Dillingham production that ran from October 19, 1907, to February 1, 1908, and wrote both music and lyrics for Florenz Ziegfeld's Over the River in 1912, a co-production with Dillingham that was notable as the first Broadway show to feature ballroom dancing on the legitimate stage. Dillingham subsequently hired Golden to work on Hip-Hip-Hooray, which opened at the Hippodrome on September 30, 1915, and ran for 425 performances. Between 1909 and 1921, Golden wrote lyrics for four consecutive spectacular productions staged by R. H. Burnside at the Hippodrome.

Golden's most celebrated song, "Poor Butterfly," emerged from his work on the Hippodrome productions. In the summer of 1916, while working on The Big Show, Golden and composer John Raymond Hubbell were asked to create a Japanese-style number. As Golden later recounted in his 1930 autobiography Stagestruck, the two retreated to the elephant pens in the Hippodrome's basement to escape the heat, where Hubbell began playing a melody and the lyrics came quickly to Golden. The song, based on the central character of Madame Butterfly and sung by Haru Onuki, became a major hit. The Big Show ran for 425 performances at the Hippodrome from August 13, 1916, to September 1917. Another well-known Golden song was "Goodbye, Girls, I'm Through."

Using earnings from his songwriting, Golden transitioned into producing and staging Broadway shows, consistently favoring material he considered wholesome. His first production, Turn to the Right, opened in 1916 and was a hit. His second, Lightnin', co-written by Frank Bacon and Winchell Smith and first staged in February 1918, ran for 1,291 performances on Broadway, a record at the time. President Woodrow Wilson attended a performance with his wife and personally summoned Golden to his box to praise the play. Eight of Golden's first eleven productions as a producer were hits. Among his other successful shows were Three Wise Fools, Seventh Heaven, The First Year, Claudia, Guy Bolton's Chicken Feed at the Little Theatre in 1923, Pigs at the Little in 1924, and Three's a Family, which he produced at the Longacre Theatre in 1943. His Broadway credits also include the 1919 musical Hello, Alexander. Three's a Family proved to be his last major hit.

Golden extended his involvement in the theater to film production as well. He and Winchell Smith presented The Saphead in 1920, a film starring Buster Keaton based on The New Henrietta, a 1913 stage production for which the two had also been responsible. In 1925 Golden produced Thank You, directed by John Ford and starring George O'Brien, adapted from a play by Smith and Tom Cushing. The film version of Lightnin' appeared on October 31, 1930, and in 1932 Golden co-produced Those We Love, starring Mary Astor, Kenneth MacKenna, and Lilyan Tashman.

As a theater operator, Golden was associated with three New York venues that bore his name. The first John Golden Theater, designed by Harrison G. Wiseman, opened at 202 West 58th Street on November 1, 1926, with the production Two Girls Wanted, and was later renamed the 58th Street Theater in 1935. Golden subsequently leased the Royale Theater at 242 West 45th Street, renaming it the Golden Theater and operating it from 1934 to 1936, with Norma Krasna's Small Miracle as its first production. In 1937 he purchased the Masque Theatre at 252 West 45th Street, originally designed in 1927 by Herbert J. Krapp, and renamed it the John Golden Theatre. That 800-seat venue achieved its first success under the new name with Shadow and Substance in 1938, starring Julie Haydon and Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

Beyond his producing and songwriting work, Golden was active in the broader theatrical community. He was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, serving as its first treasurer and as a director from 1914 to 1915. In 1919 he organized a meeting with producers including Fred Zimmerman, Archibald Selwyn, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Winchell Smith, and L. Lawrence Weber to address shared concerns such as censorship and ticket speculation, an effort that led to the formation of the Producing Managers' Association. The association's formation contributed to the conditions that prompted actors to organize through the Actors' Equity Association, which subsequently launched a strike. After a month of closed productions and stopped openings, the strike was settled on September 6, 1919, at a meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in which Golden participated, resulting in a five-year contract recognizing Equity. He served as Shepherd of the Lambs, a social club for theatrical professionals, from 1942 to 1944, was a founder of the Stage Door Canteen and the Stage Relief Fund, and was among the first board members of the City Center of Music and Drama. During both World War I and World War II he organized a program to provide free theater tickets to servicemen. In 1954 he was appointed New York City Chairman for United Nations Day and authored the United Nations All Faith Prayer for Peace.

Golden married Margaret Hesterich in 1909. The couple moved to the Bayside neighborhood of New York City in 1920, where they purchased a fifteen-room house on a twenty-acre estate and donated nine acres for use as baseball diamonds and a children's play center. Golden died at home of a heart attack on June 17, 1955, and left the Bayside estate to the City of New York as a park for the use of the community's young people.