Career
Born in Springfield, Illinois, Watson began his career at age 15 performing a vaudeville act at the Olympic Theatre in Springfield. As a teenager, he toured the United States. midwest with the "Kickapoo Remedies Show", a traveling medicine show. He then appeared in Coney Island in a Gus Edwards show.
In 1918, he first played on Broadway when he was a replacement in the role of Robert Street in Going Up and then created the role of the flamboyant dressmaker "Madame Lucy" in the hit musical Irene (1919), later repeating the role.
He continued to play on Broadway through the 1920s. Watson began to appear in films at the end of the silent film era, in 1925, playing various character roles, including an interior decorator, a radio announcer, a hotel manager, a dance director, a band leader, a dress maker and a detective.
He was a diction coach (uncredited) in Singin" in the Rain (1952). In 1942, he appeared as Adolf Hitler in a Hal Roach Studio short subject called The Devil With Hitler.
Watson would appear as Hitler in nine films all together, including, Nazty Nuisance (1943),,, and
Watson died in Los Angeles in 1965 at age 76. He is buried in the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.