Talk:William Johnstone (actor)

Middle name
I'm a bit unsure on the inclusion of the middle name Llewellyn; it's on some online biographies, but the only print source I can find is about Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, where someone named William Llewellyn Johnstone is said to appear uncredited - the two identities are linked in IMDB, but it is possible it's an error.--Pharos (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Blog citation
This is not a user-generated blog, so it doesn't have that problem, but it is a from an e-commerce OTR site associated with When Radio Was. Commercial interests do present their own issues, so it's not ideal, but I don't think there is another source that looks as comprehensively at his different roles.--Pharos (talk) 03:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Scotland or Brooklyn?
Sources disagree. I don't think it was uncommon at the time for people to invent more exotic origins for themselves, although it is also possible I suppose he just grew up in Brooklyn.--Pharos (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2018 (UTC)


 * That's much like the variations in birth years that we find for many actors and actresses from the past. It's often difficult to know which information is correct. Eddie Blick (talk) 19:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, the Census has his father immigrating in 1898, his mother in 1888.--Pharos (talk) 22:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

William S. Johnstone, Brooklyn actor in the 1930 Census
This is certainly him, listed as New York-born, and named after his Scottish-born father. His mother is listed as the German-born Teresa Johnstone.- It appears he also starred in an E. E. Cummings play in 1928 and another that same year by Kate Clugston.-Pharos (talk) 17:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

"She says she suggested a young actor friend, whose name was Franchot Tone, for the male lead; but Light had already decided on William S. Johnstone. Johnstone was only twenty years old when he was cast for the role of Him. Previous to that he had played as an extra in Theatre Guild productions. Five feet ten and a half inches tall, and weighing only 135, he portrayed the part with an intensity that he now admits he did not always quite understand. He had gray-green eyes, dark brown hair with some gray in it, and a "broken" aquiline nose ("I fell as a child, and the doctor just gave it a twist"). Like Cummings, he is Scotch. "I read for Light and Cummings," he told me. "I have often wondered why they cast me in the part. I wasn't prepared to meet the challenge of this play. The experiences in it were very foreign to me. I can't say I completely knew what Cummings meant. I was trying to get to know my own part without troubling too much about the play. I guess I was too young to appreciate any of the values. But I soaked up some of Cummings's character to some extent by listening to him. And I began to think in symbols rather than words. "Light and Cummings were wonderful to me. They were spending as much time with me as they could, taking me to the places where they went and where I listened to them talking. I have never done anything since that has given me quite the same satisfaction as an actor. It required all your concentration. As a consequence, you felt you had accomplished something every time you got through a performance." I asked him what he thought of Miss O'Brien-Moore. He said: "She was voluptuous, she was sultry; I have no reason to believe she wasn't just right. Maybe she brought out in me the innocence and immaturity that I myself had at that time and that the character of Him felt in his relationship to Me. I asked him what he thought of the reviews. "The critics felt the power of it," he told me, but didn't understand it. It was very depressing, because I would have liked to play the part longer. It wasn't a question of money.""

- Charles Norman in ''The Magic Maker, E.E. Cummings (1958), pp. 233-34

This is a extended quote about him, another potential source for the article.--Pharos (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for providing that material. It should help to flesh out the article a bit more. I'm working on some other things now, but I hope to get back to the Johnstone article tonight. Eddie Blick (talk) 19:49, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I should clarify, the evidence this is the same actor for the Cummings play is overwhelming: same age, background, Theatre Guild experience, prematurely gray hair, broken nose and the Census and SSDI confirming the middle initial. Internet Broadway Database lists that actor as "William S. Johnstne", but oddly has a separate listing for "William Johnstone", whose only work is 1927-8 too, and that includes the Clugston play; I guess the other non-Cummings plays have slightly less evidence, but still seem very likely given the young age of the character he is playing and the timeline in his career.  Incidentally, the Clugston play was also the stage debut of Katharine Hepburn.--Pharos (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Daily News article on Newspapers.com
This article about a traffic ticket uses "William S. Johnstone", and may have some interesting personal information, but I don't have access to the site.--Pharos (talk) 01:36, 24 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Here is a clipping of the article. It just identifies Johnstone as the actor who plays The Shadow and tells that he was fined $2 for running a red light. Eddie Blick (talk) 12:42, 24 August 2018 (UTC)