BURIED TOGETHER
Partner Hiram Sherman
Queer Places:
853 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019, USA
Hotel Belvedere, 319 W 48th St, New York, NY 10036, USA
New Union Cemetery, Lincoln, IL 62656, United States
Thomas Wheeler "Whitford" Kane (January 30, 1881 - December 17, 1956) was born on January 30, 1881, in Larne, a seaport in County Antrim, Ireland, to Dr.
John Kane and Isabella Whiteford. He began his acting career on the stage in Belfast in his early twenties and made his way to London by 1910. In 1912,
he immigrated to the United States and made his Broadway debut as Daniel Murray in Rutherford Mayne's comedy The Drone. Over a stage career spanning more
than five decades, Kane appeared in nearly sixty Broadway productions, gaining a reputation as a dependable character actor known for portraying warm,
benign, and amiable figures. His most celebrated signature role was the First Gravedigger in Shakespeare's Hamlet, which he played across 23 different
productions alongside renowned actors including John Barrymore,
Maurice Evans, and Walter Hampden.
Beyond his acting roles, Kane was a dedicated drama educator and mentor. He taught young actors at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago—where, as director,
he awarded a young Orson Welles a drama prize—and later at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. He maintained a close
relationship with Welles, becoming an early collaborator and key member of Welles's Mercury Theatre company. During the 1930s and 1940s, Kane appeared in
several Hollywood feature films, including Hide-Out (1934), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and as the publisher Mr. Sproule in The Ghost and Mrs.
Muir (1947). He also performed in early broadcast television productions such as NBC's 1939 teleplay The Streets of New York and the 1954 Hallmark Hall
of Fame production of King Richard II.
In his personal life, Whitford Kane shared a life partnership of over twenty-five years with fellow American stage and film actor
Hiram Sherman. Sherman, a Tony Award-winning actor and fellow Mercury Theatre player, lived alongside Kane in
New York. Despite battling cancer toward the end of his life, Kane continued acting to preserve his remarkable professional record of only missing one
performance in over fifty years of stage work. He died on December 17, 1956, in New York City at the age of 75, survived by his partner Hiram Sherman as
well as a brother and sister. He was buried in the Sherman family plot at New Union Cemetery, Lincoln, with Hiram Sherman, who was his partner for over
25 years.
References:
- Kane, Whitford. Are We All Met? London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot, 1931.
- New York Public Library Digital Collections & Theatre Division Archives.
- "Actor for Five Decades, Marks 75th Birthday and 56th Production." The New York Times, January 30, 1956, p. 24.
- "Whitford Kane, Actor, 75, Dead." The New York Times, December 18, 1956, p. 31.
- Geer, Will. "Found In The Drama Mailbag." The New York Times, December 30, 1956, p. X3.
- Parker, John. Who's Who in the Theatre: A Biographical Record of the Contemporary Stage. Pitman & Sons (multiple editions, 1922–1957).
- Internet Broadway Database (IBDB).
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films (American Film Institute) & IMDb.
- Cochrane, Claire. Twentieth-Century British Theatre: Industry, Art and Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
- Higham, Charles. The Films of Orson Welles. University of California Press, 1970.
- McHenry, Margaret. The Ulster Theatre in Ireland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931.
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