Joseph Cotten

Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was born on May 15, 1905, in Petersburg, Virginia, the eldest of three sons of Joseph Cheshire Cotten Sr., an assistant postmaster, and Sally Willson Cotten. His two brothers, Whitworth W. and Samuel W. Cotten, both became engineers. Cotten grew up in the Tidewater region and demonstrated an early aptitude for drama and storytelling. In 1923, at age eighteen, his family arranged and funded private instruction for him at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington, D.C. To earn spending money during that period, he played professional football on Sundays at $25 per quarter. After completing his studies, he worked as a lifeguard at Wilcox Lake, earning enough to repay his family's loan with interest. He relocated to Miami in 1925, where he sold advertising for The Miami Herald at $35 per week, performed at the Miami Civic Theatre for five years, and also reviewed productions for the Herald.

Cotten subsequently moved to New York, where he worked for producer David Belasco as an assistant stage manager. He served as an understudy to Melvyn Douglas in Tonight or Never and later succeeded Douglas in the lead role at the Copley Theatre in Boston, where he worked on and performed in more than thirty plays. During the Depression, when stage work was scarce, he supplemented his income through modeling with the Walter Thornton Model Agency, acting in industrial films, and performing on radio. His Broadway debut came in 1932 in Absent Friends, which ran for 88 performances. He followed that with Jezebel in 1933, staged by Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic, which had only a brief run, and then appeared in Loose Moments, which ran for 8 performances.

In 1934, Cotten met Orson Welles while both were cast members on CBS Radio's The American School of the Air, beginning a professional partnership that would define much of his career. Welles, who regarded Cotten as a gifted comic actor, cast him in the starring role of his Federal Theatre Project farce Horse Eats Hat, which ran from September 26 to December 5, 1936. Cotten credited that production with attracting the attention of his future Broadway co-star Katharine Hepburn. In 1937, Cotten became an inaugural member of Welles's Mercury Theatre company, appearing in its Broadway production of Caesar as Publius, which ran for 157 performances. He continued with the company in The Shoemaker's Holiday and Danton's Death in 1938, and also performed in radio dramas on The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse. That same year he made his film debut in Welles's short comedy Too Much Johnson, a film that was never publicly screened and was considered lost until 2008, with a public screening following in 2013 at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

Cotten returned to Broadway in 1939 to originate the role of C. K. Dexter Haven opposite Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord in Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story, which ran for 417 performances at the Shubert Theatre. The production established him as a significant stage presence and led to a period in Hollywood, though the film version of The Philadelphia Story was made with Cary Grant in his role. His agent Leland Hayward suggested leveraging Cotten's connection to Welles, whose Mercury Theatre had made a strong impression in Hollywood, and the two reunited for a series of major film collaborations.

Filming on Citizen Kane began in mid-1940, with Cotten playing Jedediah Leland, the best friend of Welles's press magnate protagonist. The film was released on May 1, 1941, and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning only for Best Screenplay. The Los Angeles Times noted that Cotten's work in the film was "vital and distinctive," calling him an important find. He next starred in Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942, an adaptation that RKO cut by nearly an hour before release following poor preview responses. Cotten then co-wrote the screenplay for the World War II spy thriller Journey into Fear in 1943 with Welles, and also starred in the film, which was directed by Norman Foster and released by RKO.

Throughout the 1940s, Cotten became one of Hollywood's leading actors. His film credits during the decade included Shadow of a Doubt in 1943, Gaslight in 1944, Love Letters in 1945, Duel in the Sun in 1946, The Farmer's Daughter in 1947, Portrait of Jennie in 1948, and The Third Man in 1949, the last of which again featured Welles. For his performance in Portrait of Jennie, Cotten received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. He also served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. His film work continued into subsequent decades, with one of his final screen appearances coming in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate in 1980.

Cotten's Broadway career extended from 1932 to 1962 and included, in addition to The Philadelphia Story and Horse Eats Hat, productions such as Sabrina Fair in 1953, the comedy Once More, With Feeling, and Calculated Risk. He died on February 6, 1994.