(1923), Design for Living (1943), The Overtons (1945), and A Girl Can Tell (1953), and toured nationally with Arsenic and Old Lace (1941–1942 with Erich von Stroheim, 1943 with Boris Karloff, and 1944 with Bela Lugosi), and with the musicals The Red Mill (1947), High Button Shoes (1948–1949, 1950), and Gay Divorce (1950).

Whiting also starred in a handful of films during the 1930s, including the British musical Sailing Along (1938) with Jessie Matthews, and the American comedy Give Me a Sailor (1938) with Martha Raye, Bob Hope and Betty Grable.

Whiting was born on June 22, 1901, in Philadelphia, where he worked as a stenographer before going on the vaudeville stage as a young amateur actor[1] with the Mask and Wig Club at the University of Pennsylvania,[2] and developing a career as a singer and dancer, often portraying a smiling, blond leading man[3] or a major supporting character.

[4] Whiting's debut on Broadway was in the 1922 edition of Ziegfeld Follies, in which he sang "Flappers" with the Connor Twins (sisters Thelma and Velma) during a dance by Jimmy Nervo.

with Long Jr., William McCarthy, Joan Clement, Pearl Eaton, Phyllis Rae and Ensemble (all songs by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers).

[21] He was Jerry Brooks in Top Speed with Joe E. Brown and Bernice Claire,[22] and A. J. Smith in The Life of the Party with Winnie Lightner and Irene Delroy.

[23] The following year, he starred opposite Irene Delroy again, this time in the role of Jack Ames in Men of the Sky, a spy drama film with songs.

[24] On February 10, 1931, Whiting opened Rodgers and Hart's America's Sweetheart in the role of Michael Perry, singing three songs with Ann Sothern (née Harriette Lake): "I've Got Five Dollars", "We'll Be the Same", and "Hello Folks!

[26][27] The New York Times said: "Jack Whiting of the blonde hair and baritone voice and Harriette Lake are a personable pair of musical comedy bandmasters.

[30] In early 1935, Whiting and his wife Beth travelled to London to join her son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., for the celebrations of George V's silver jubilee,[31] which took place on May 6.

During their break in England, Whiting was offered the lead role of Billy Crocker[32] in C. B. Cochran's London production of Cole Porter's Anything Goes,[33] which opened on June 14.

He had almost everything, except that special magic that makes a Great Star.In May 1936, he starred in the London production of Rise and Shine by Harry Graham & Desmond Carter and Robert Stolz, in which he played Jack Harding, with Binnie Hale as Anne.

[35] Still in London, the premiere of On Your Toes took place on February 5, 1937, and when Whiting joined the others in the company for the traditional first night celebrations at the Savoy Grill, "he was once again cheered to the rafters".

Just over a week earlier, on May 21, Whiting and the cast's other main characters appeared in a viewing of excerpts from the same show, televised by the BBC as part of the British series Theatre Parade.

Playing the part of a Broadway star named Dicky Randall, he sang and danced solo to "Souvenir of Love", and with Matthews to "Your Heart Skips a Beat", two songs written by Arthur Johnston and Maurice Sigler.

[42] For the final big dance number—"My River", which lasted seven minutes on screen—the camera followed Whiting and Matthews for nearly a mile, and the set was so large that it had to be built across two studios.

[44] Whiting resumed working in the US in late 1937 and joined Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen's Hooray for What!, which ran from December 1, 1937, until May 21, 1938, for a very successful 200 performances.

[45] From mid-April until early June 1938,[46] Whiting also joined the cast of Give Me a Sailor, a comedy film directed by Elliott Nugent in which he starred alongside Bob Hope, Martha Raye and Betty Grable.

[60] On September 17–18, 1943, Whiting was again playing his role of Mortimer Brewster—at the Playhouse in Wilmington, DE—as part of another tour of Arsenic and Old Lace,[b] with Boris Karloff as Jonathan Brewster.

[61] In January 1944, he joined yet another tour of the same play throughout the Midwest and East Coast, this time with Bela Lugosi as Jonathan Brewster, for a run of 80 performances that lasted until June 1944.

He then embarked on another national tour by joining High Button Shoes (1948–1949), which opened in Boston (April 14, 1948),[67][68] and ran for at least 16 shows throughout the Midwest and Great Plains, including Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Los Angeles (August 15, 1949),[69] and closing in Kansas City (December 31, 1949),[citation needed] although the show ran again for two weeks the following year (from June 12 through June 25, 1950) at the State Fair Auditorium in Dallas, TX.

The musical ran for four weeks, opening on July 17 in East Hampton, NY, and closing on August 19 in Stockbridge, MA, after 28 performances; other cast members included Carol Stone and Lenore Lonergan.

[78][79][80] He returned to the musical stage in May 1952, playing three roles (The Chief Justice, Guide, and Senator from Massachusetts) in George and Ira Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, which opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre and ran for 72 performances until July 5.

[82] He sang Jule Styne and Bob Hilliard's "Every Street's A Boulevard In Old New York" to great critical acclaim, and Robert Coleman in the Daily Mirror wrote that "Jack Whiting had the audience blistering their palms" for encores of that song.

[86][87][88] The following year, he played the role of Hector Charybdis, Mayor of Rhododendron and one of "The Heroes" in The Golden Apple, a light-hearted adaptation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey transposed to the United States during the first decade of the twentieth-century.

He also performed in Paris in the Springtime (1956), a live telecast produced by Max Liebman and starring Dan Dailey, Gale Sherwood and Helen Gallagher, in which he reprised "Down With Love" from Hooray for What!

[102] In his 1988 autobiography, Fairbanks, Jr. wrote: "Jack was a handsome redhead, about twenty-seven or -eight years old, with a virile baritone that helped make 'You're the Cream in My Coffee' a successful song.

[109] He had a talent for dancing that was equal – some say – to Fred Astaire's or Gene Kelly's.Whiting died of acute coronary thrombosis in his Manhattan apartment on Wednesday, February 15, 1961, while watching television with his wife Beth.