Joseph Johnson Dowling[citation needed] (September 4, 1850 – July 8, 1928) was an American stage and silent film actor.

[1] As a young boy, Dowling served as a drummer in Company G of the 29th Iowa Infantry during the Civil War.

[2] Dowling began his career on the stage and in vaudeville before he made his film debut in 1913 in Sleuthing.

He is best remembered for playing the Patriarch, one of four main characters, in the now lost film The Miracle Man (1919).

Dowling continued to appear in major Hollywood silent productions including Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921) with Mary Pickford, Quincy Adams Sawyer (1922) with Lon Chaney and Blanche Sweet, The Christian (1923) with Richard Dix and Mae Busch, One Night in Rome with Laurette Taylor and the Victor Fleming directed Lord Jim (1925).