Cohan, George M(ichael)

Cohan, George M[ichael] (1878–1942), actor, composer, librettist, lyricist, and producer. The first enduring figure of the modern American musical comedy stage, he was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of vaudeville performers, with whom he made his theatrical debut. His father, Jerry; his mother, Helen; his sister, Josephine; and he became one of vaudeville's most popular turns, The Four Cohans. Although he appeared briefly in Daniel Boone (1888) and toured in the title role of Peck's Bad Boy (1890), it was his expansion of a vaudeville skit he had written for his family that marked Cohan's entrance into musical comedy ranks. The Governor's Son (1901) and Running for Office (1903), another expanded vaudeville sketch, while only modest hits, earned him the reputation as a fast‐paced director and as a cocky, jaunty performer. Real success came with Little Johnny Jones (1904). Critics dismissed his songs as tinkly Tin Pan Alley ditties and his books as too slangy, chauvinistic, and trite, but he immediately found a public that long remained loyal. In 1906 he had two of his greatest hits, Forty‐five Minutes from Broadway and George Washington, Jr., in which he starred. Later musicals, many of which he also starred in, included The Honeymooners (1907), The Talk of New York (1907), Fifty Miles from Boston (1908), The Yankee Prince (1908), The American Idea (1908), The Man Who Owns Broadway (1909), The Little Millionaire (1911), Hello, Broadway! (1914), The Cohan Revues (1916 and 1918), The Voice of McConnell (1918), The Royal Vagabond (1919), Little Nellie Kelly (1922), The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly (1923), The Merry Malones (1927), and Billie (1928). Among the still‐familiar songs to come from these shows were “Yankee Doodle Boy,” “Harrigan,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “You're a Grand Old Flag,” and “Nellie Kelly, I Love You.” Although Popularity (1906) was a failure, Cohan wrote several other nonmusical plays that enjoyed long runs: Get‐Rich‐Quick Wallingford (1910), Broadway Jones (1912), Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913), The Miracle Man (1914), Hit‐the‐Trail Holliday (1915), The Tavern (1920), Madeleine and the Movies (1922), The Song and Dance Man (1923), American Born (1925), The Home Towners (1926), The Baby Cyclone (1927), Whispering Friends (1928), and Gambling (1929). His last plays were mostly failures, but Cohan remained a popular performer throughout his long career.

Between 1906 and 1920 he formed a highly successful partnership with Sam Harris, the duo producing all of Cohan's plays of that period and many other profitable ones as well. They also built the George M. Cohan Theatre. In 1919, as both actor and producer, Cohan attempted to mediate the Actors' Equity strike, but the union's cold response left him permanently embittered. Following the dissolution of his partnership with Harris, he produced his own plays and those of others. Until late in his career, Cohan appeared solely in his own works, except as an occasional replacement. However, two of his greatest acting successes were in other men's plays. In 1933 he scored a singular triumph as Nat Miller in Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!, then in 1937 played President Roosevelt in Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right. Amy Leslie drew a picture of the young performer “with big, soulful eyes that speak music and peer cloudily out from under soft blonde hair. His face is pale and swift to mirror sentiment.” Walter Prichard Eaton's condemnation of Cohan for “his lack of good taste and his lack of a real knowledge of the world” typified many critics' dismissal of Cohan's early plays. With time, however, they came to appreciate his excellent technique and acute sense of what audiences wanted. Ironically, critical acceptance grew as Cohan's popularity and sure touch waned. Most of his best shows were among his first, and these fine early plays, for all their simplicity, their apparent naïveté, and their unabashed flag‐waving, remain his most appealing and enduring. Perhaps it is doubly ironic, given the still lively popularity of his finest songs, that two of his nonmusical plays, Seven Keys to Baldpate and The Tavern, are the most often revived. Much of the catalog of Cohan songs was featured in the popular Broadway biography musical George M., 1968. Biography: George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway, John McCabe, 1973.