Raymond Hitchcock was an American actor. He starred in silent films of the 1920s, and appeared in Broadway plays.
Background
Raymond Hitchcock was born on October 22, 1865 in Auburn, New York, United States. He was the son of Charles and Celestia (Burroughs) Hitchcock, was one of a large number of stage performers who made themselves, through the force of comic personality, the central figures in musical comedy, extravaganza, and other forms of miscellaneous entertainment that began to dominate the theatre in the last years of the nineteenth century.
Career
After some attempts at amateur acting and a brief career in business as a shoe salesman and department-store clerk, Hitchcock first entered the stage door of a theatre in 1890 as a chorus singer with a popular organization of that day known as the Carleton Opera Company. For a while he played minor characters in a considerable number of musical pieces, and now and then he was seen in speaking plays, notably in The Littlest Girl, We-uns of Tennessee, The Galloper, and Charley's Aunt.
Some of his early appearances during the making of a reputation that finally led him permanently into the ranks of theatrical stardom were as Lambertuccio in Boccaccio, Lurcher in Dorothy, in A Dangerous Maid, Three Little Lambs, The Belle of Bridgeport, The Burgomaster, and conspicuous parts in numerous musical comedies of that era.
His first notable success was in the title role of King Dodo, and his first bow to the public as a star was made at the Tremont Theatre, Boston, September 21, 1903, as Abijah Booze in The Yankee Consul. With the exception of occasional ventures into the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, in which he played such principal parts as Sir Joseph Porter in H. M. S. Pinafore and Ko Ko in The Mikado, and of a brief engagement in England in the spring of 1916, the story of his professional life thenceforth can be comprised in a list of some twenty musical comedies in which he was either featured or starred. Among these pieces were The Merry-go-round, The Man Who Owns Broadway, The Beauty Shop, A Yankee Tourist, and The Red Widow.
Beginning in 1917, he was the leading factor in the presentation of a series of annual productions called Hitchy Koo--from his nickname of "Hitchy" - in which his antics vocal and physical, his whimsicalities, his curtain speeches, and his patter singing formed the nucleus of an entertainment the parts of which were no more closely related than the turns of an entire evening's program in a vaudeville theatre. For several seasons they were popular, and then the interest in them flagged.
In 1921 he was a leading comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1924 he ventured into drama by playing Clem Hawley in The Old Soak, and during his last few years he was a participant in the making of motion-picture plays at Hollywood.
After a period of invalidism, he died suddenly in an automobile while returning from a morning drive with his wife to his home in Beverly Hills. According to the Daily Register Gazette, Hitchcock was cremated with plans to return his ashes to Canandaigua, New York for burial in the family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Achievements
Personality
Hitchcock's eccentric personality, his lanky figure, his grotesque and mobile features, his drawling speech, his shock of hair that fell over one side of his forehead, and an ingratiating manner that took the audience intimately into his confidence, formed his chief stock in trade as a comedian.
Interests
At one time Hitchcock owned a farm of several hundred acres in Dutchess County, and he declared that off stage he dearly loved the life of a farmer.
Connections
His wife, to whom he was married in 1905, was of Armenian ancestry. Her name was Izabelle Mangasarian and she was known on the stage as Flora Zabelle.