Charles Winninger Movies and Career Information

Charles Winninger (May 26, 1884 – January 27, 1969) was an American stage and film actor, most often cast in comedies or musicals, but equally at home in drama. He began as a vaudeville actor. His most famous stage role was as Cap'n Andy Hawks in the original production of the Jerome Kern - Oscar Hammerstein II musical classic Show Boat in 1927, a role that he reprised – to great acclaim – in the 1932 stage revival and the 1936 film version of the show. He became so identified with the role, and with his "persona" as a riverboat captain, that he played several variations of the role, notably on the radio program Maxwell House Show Boat, which was clearly inspired by, but not actually based on, the Broadway musical. After the 1936 "Show Boat", Winninger largely abandoned the stage and stayed on in Hollywood, becoming one of its most beloved and most often seen character actors. He appeared in such classics as the 1937 Nothing Sacred (as the drunken doctor who misdiagnoses Carole Lombard), the 1939 Destry Rides Again (as Wash, the sheriff who hires James Stewart as his deputy), as Deanna Durbin's father in the film Three Smart Girls, and as Abel Frake in the 1945 Rodgers and