Los Angeles County

Biographies

 

 

NATHANIEL CARL GOODWIN JR.

 

 

GOODWIN, NATHANIEL CARL JR., Actor, Santa Monica, California, New York, and Boston, was born at Boston, Mass., July 25, 1857, the son of Nathaniel Carl and Caroline R. Goodwin.

            Mr. Goodwin married four times, to women acknowledged to be the most beautiful of their day.  He first married Eliza Weathersbee, a lovely English actress, in 1877.  She died in 1887.  In 1888 he married Mrs. Nella Baker Pease, society beauty of Buffalo, N.Y., but they were divorced in 1891.  His third marriage was in 1898 with Maxine Elliott, the actress, voted the one most beautiful woman of her generation, and the union endured for nearly ten years, but was also ended by divorce.  Edna Goodrich, another well known actress and beauty, because his bride in 1908, at Boston, but she also was separated from him in the year 1911.

            Mr. Goodwin was educated in the public schools of Boston and Little Blue Academy, in Maine, graduating from the latter in 1873.  For a short time after leaving school he was engaged in commercial pursuits, but a talent for mimicry which he first obtained in a chance as general utility man at Niblo’s Gardens, New York City.  His first distinct success was the Stuart Robson in a minor part of in “Law in New York.”  From that time down to date his stage career has been a record of success, and for a generation he was conceded to be the leading actor of high-class comedies on the American stage.  Some of his successes were Captain Dietrich in “Evangeline,” in the Gilbert & Sullivan operas, in the part of Bottom in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “An American Citizen,” as Sir Lucius O’Trigger in “The Rivals,” as Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice,” and many others.

            In 1908 he retired from the stage to take charge of mining interests at Rawhide, Nevada.  At one time these properties were estimated to be worth $4,000,000.  They were in the famous Balloon Hill.  For months ore worth $2,000 to the ton was extracted from his claims.  The money he earned on the stage and drew out of his mines he invested in a hotel at San Francisco, in realty in New York City, in California ranches, and in a beautiful home at Santa Monica.

            He returned to the stage in 1910, and repeated his early successes as a comedian.

            Although comedy parts have been his favorites, his several efforts in tragedy have received high praise, and it is thought he could have been one of the greatest of tragedians had he chosen.  Critics accord him a permanent and big place in the history of the American Dramatic art.

            He has belonged to innumerable clubs, in various parts of the country.  At the present time he maintains membership in the Green Room Club of London, Lambs, Players and Larchmont Yacht Clubs of New York City.

 

 

Transcribed by Michele Y. Larsen 22 October 2011.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I,  Page 815, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.

© 2011 Michele Y. Larsen.

 

 

 

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