William T. Hodge

William Thomas Hodge (November 1, 1874 – January 30, 1932) was an American actor, playwright, and theatrical producer whose Broadway career spanned from 1899 to 1930. Born in Albion, New York, he was the third of four children of Thomas Hodge and Mary Anderson, both Irish immigrants. His father worked first as a teamster and later as a stone mason. Hodge received his education in Albion's public schools before entering the theater, joining the same theatrical company as his older brother Joseph, initially working as a property man.

Hodge made his Broadway debut in the spring of 1899, playing a Brazilian heavy in the Rogers Brothers musical comedy A Reign of Error. Though he earned thirty-five dollars a week as a bit player, his work caught the attention of playwright James A. Herne, who sought him for Sag Harbor. Because Hodge was under contract to Klaw and Erlanger, Herne's producer-manager George C. Tyler negotiated with Abe Erlanger to loan him out. Hodge's performance in Sag Harbor earned praise from The New York Times reviewer, who called it the best in the piece. After touring in that production and appearing in two short-lived Broadway plays, Tyler cast him again in Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch in 1903. Hodge played Stubbins, a mail-order groom who becomes an unexpected catch for the spinster Miss Hazy, played by Helen Lowell. The role proved popular with audiences, and Hodge remained with the production on Broadway and on tour from 1903 to 1905. He subsequently appeared in a musical and then in the operetta Dream City, which ran through 1907.

The turning point in Hodge's career came with The Man from Home, written by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson during a visit to Europe in 1907. Wilson told producer George C. Tyler that the lead character had been built with Hodge in mind, and Tyler offered him the starring role. Before reaching Broadway, the production set a dramatic record of 316 performances during its initial Chicago run in 1907 and 1908. It premiered on Broadway in August 1908 and ran through November 1909, accumulating nearly 500 performances, before embarking on a national tour that continued for four seasons. The production established Hodge as a star and gave rise to the Broadway term "The William Hodge public," a phrase used to describe his reliable ability to draw audiences anywhere in the country. Hodge himself regarded Broadway as no different from any other city on the touring circuit. While still performing in The Man from Home and residing at The Lambs Club, he married actress Helen Perley Cogswell, who performed on Broadway under the name Helen Hale from 1901 through 1909, in June 1909.

Beginning in 1913, Hodge signed with producer Lee Shubert and began writing his own plays, initially under the pseudonym Lawrence Whitman. The Road to Happiness, his first effort under that name, performed well on the road but lasted only a month when it reached Broadway in 1915. Shubert subsequently purchased two more plays attributed to Lawrence Whitman. Fixing Sister, produced in 1916, was described by The New York Times as a faint but amusing copy of The Man from Home, with the paper openly noting it was Hodge's own work. A Cure for Curables, produced in 1918, was co-written primarily with Earl Derr Biggers and was set in a sanitarium, with Hodge playing a physician tasked with curing ten patients in as many days. After 1918, Hodge abandoned the Lawrence Whitman alias entirely, selling subsequent plays to Shubert under his own name.

Beware of Dogs, produced in 1921, cast Hodge as a Greenwich, Connecticut, kennel owner who eventually confronts his difficult clients. The production reached its 100th performance on December 14, 1921, closing three nights later. His most commercially successful Broadway work as a playwright was For All of Us, which premiered in October 1923. In it, Hodge played an Irish laborer imprisoned at Sing Sing who finds redemption through a bible. The production moved between several Shubert-owned venues and reached its 200th performance in early April 1924, closing two weeks after that milestone.

Hodge's relationship with Lee Shubert as producer ended with The Judge's Husband, a three-act farce in which a rural Connecticut judge, played by Gladys Hanson, presides over her own divorce from her attorney husband, played by Hodge. The play ran over three months, closing January 1, 1927. Hodge then produced his own next play, Straight Through the Door, in 1928, a mystery comedy in which he played an actor suspected of murder who ultimately exposes the real culprit. Direction was handled by Maurice Barrett. Inspector Kennedy, produced in 1929, was the only play after 1913 in which Hodge performed but did not write, with the script credited to Milton Herbert Gropper and Edna Sherry. It closed after a month. Hodge quickly followed it with The Old Rascal at the same venue, again directed by Maurice Barrett, in which he played a wealthy California judge who outmaneuvers swindlers attempting a badger game. The production closed on Broadway after two months and proved to be his final stage appearance. Hodge also appeared in The Girl from Home, a musical, during his Broadway career.

Hodge died of lobar pneumonia on January 30, 1932, at his home in the Round Hill community of Greenwich, Connecticut, having been ill for three days before his death. He was survived by his wife, Helen Cogswell Hodge; his daughters, Genevieve Hodge Law and Martha Hodge; and his son, William Hodge Jr. A service was held at his home the following day, after which his body was cremated.