Joseph Holland

Joseph Holland (August 30, 1910 – December 28, 1994) was an American stage, television, and film actor born in Franklin, Virginia, who grew up in a small farming community. He is principally remembered for his work in the theatre, particularly in productions of William Shakespeare, and for his role as a founding member of the Mercury Theatre. His Broadway career spanned from 1934 to 1957, encompassing 22 productions.

Holland pursued formal training in drama at the University of Richmond, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1932 and performed the title role in Othello during his senior year. He was also the first person to deliver a dramatic speech at the university's newly constructed Jenkins Greek Theatre. He subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, earning a Master of Arts in 1934. While still a student at RADA, he portrayed the title role in Shakespeare's King Lear at the Theatre Royal Haymarket alongside fellow student Francis de Wolff, who played Cornwall. Holland made his professional stage debut in London in April 1934, playing George Patterson in Howard Irving Young's The Drums Begin at the Embassy Theatre.

Following his graduation from RADA, Holland relocated to New York City and secured his first Broadway role as Sampson, a servant to Capulet, in Katharine Cornell's 1934 revival of Romeo and Juliet. He went on to appear in several additional Cornell productions, including George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan in 1936, in which he played both Robert de Baudricourt and Canon John D'Estivet, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 1947–1948, in which he portrayed Pompey. In 1935 he appeared in a Broadway production of Othello as the Gentleman of Cyprus, with Philip Merivale in the title role, Gladys Cooper as Desdemona, and Kenneth MacKenna as Iago. That same year he created the role of Timothy Healy in Elsie Schauffler's Parnell, which ran into 1936.

In 1937 Holland became a founding member of the Mercury Theatre, the company established by Orson Welles and John Houseman. He was cast in the title role of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for the company's inaugural production, selected in part because his physical appearance was said to resemble Benito Mussolini. The production was critically acclaimed and was staged with deliberate evocations of contemporary fascism in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, with Welles playing Brutus. During the Broadway run, on April 6, 1938, a serious accident occurred in Act 3 Scene 1. Welles had insisted on using a real steel knife rather than a prop, and in that performance he stabbed Holland in the chest and arm rather than creating the illusion of a stabbing as rehearsed. Holland delivered his final lines — "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar." — before collapsing to the stage floor. The other actors continued the scene, with Holland bleeding on the stage, until the curtain closed ten to fifteen minutes later. He was taken to the hospital and required a month of recovery before returning to the role. He also recorded the role of Caesar for the radio program The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938. In later years, Holland remarked that if he encountered Welles on the street, he would turn and walk the other way.

Holland also appeared in two Broadway productions mounted by Basil Rathbone: Hamlet in 1936, in which he played Horatio, and a 1950 revival of Julius Caesar, in which he took the role of Brutus. In 1937 he created the role of the Archduke John of Tuscany in the world premiere of Maxwell Anderson's The Masque of Kings with the Theatre Guild. His other original Broadway roles included Worth in George S. George's Clean Beds in 1939, Theodore in the musical Swingin' The Dream — a musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream with music by Jimmy Van Heusen — also in 1939, Emory Wages in Anderson's The Bad Seed in 1950, Frank Hyland in the 1950 revival of George Kelly's The Show-Off, Bacilek in Lindsay and Crouse's The Great Sebastians in 1956, and Robert Murray in Robert E. Sherwood's Small War on Murray Hill in 1957. In 1954 he appeared Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre as Cominius in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by John Houseman and starring Robert Ryan in the title role.

Outside New York, Holland created the role of Comte de Guiche in Vernon Duke's 1939 musical The White Plume at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. In 1940 he starred in The Winter's Tale for the Detroit Theatre Festival at the Mendelssohn Theatre on the University of Michigan campus. He portrayed Brabantio in a 1948 production of Othello at the Boston Summer Theatre, with Canada Lee in the title role. From 1948 to 1949 he toured the United States for thirty weeks performing the title roles in both Hamlet and Macbeth.

Holland's television work began in 1949 with appearances on the anthology series Suspense, on which he appeared in three episodes through 1951. He subsequently appeared as a guest actor on numerous programs, including The Ford Theatre Hour in 1950, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars and Robert Montgomery Presents in 1951, Tales of Tomorrow and Dark of Night in 1952, Suspicion, Flight, and Goodyear Theatre in 1958, Peter Gunn and Bronco in 1959, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Millionaire in 1960, and 77 Sunset Strip in 1961. His sole film appearance was as the town official Manning Thaw in the 1958 comedy Rally Round the Flag, Boys!

During World War II, Holland served in the United States Army for four years, attaining the rank of lieutenant. He was gay and began a relationship with his life partner, Vincent Newton, in 1935, a partnership that lasted until his death fifty-nine years later. In the mid-1950s the couple relocated from New York City to Nichols Canyon in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. After Holland stepped away from acting in the early 1960s, he and Newton purchased an apartment complex and several homes near the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked as landlords. They later moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Holland spent the final years of his life. He died there on December 28, 1994.