Joseph Holland (actor)

He was notably a founding member of John Houseman and Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in 1937; performing the title role in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for the first play mounted by that company.

Holland went on to create roles in original works by playwrights Maxwell Anderson, Lindsay and Crouse, Elsie Schauffler, and Robert E. Sherwood.

He worked periodically on television as a guest actor from 1949 through 1961 on a variety of programs, and appeared in a minor supporting role in the 1958 film Rally Round the Flag, Boys!.

[3] At the University of Richmond he performed the title role in Othello in his senior year, and was also the first person to give a dramatic speech at the newly built amphitheater, the Jenkins Greek Theatre.

[1] In 1934 he portrayed the title role in Shakespeare's King Lear at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in a student production staged by RADA with fellow castmates including British character actor Francis de Wolff as Cornwall.

[4] Holland made his professional stage debut in London while a student at RADA as George Patterson in Howard Irving Young's The Drums Begin at the Embassy Theatre in April 1934.

[5] He moved to New York City after graduating from RADA, and landed the small role of Sampson, a servant to Capulet, in Katharine Cornell's 1934 Broadway revival of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

[1] He appeared in several more Cornell productions on Broadway including the roles of Robert de Baudricourt and Canon John D'Estivet in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1936) and Pompey in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1947–1948).

"[1] Holland also appeared in multiple Shakespeare revivals on Broadway mounted by Basil Rathbone, including Hamlet (1936, as Horatio[11]) and Julius Caesar (1950, as Brutus).

[1] After leaving acting behind in the early 1960s, Holland and Newton purchased an apartment complex and several homes close to the University of California, Los Angeles; making a living as landlords.