GLASER, VAUGHN (17 Nov. 1872 - 23 Nov. 1958) was a Cleveland-born character actor who forged a lengthy and prolific stage and screen career. From the late 1890s on, he was a fixture on Cleveland-area stages, both as a leading man and as founder and leader of the Vaughn Glaser Stock Company. (Stock companies are theatrical entities that produce an evolving menu of shows using a set group of actors, technicians, and directors, as well as a "stock" of redeployed scenery, costumes, and props.)
An outgrowth of several Cleveland-based stock companies (Frohman’s Lyceum Theater Company and the Eugenie Blair Co.) the Vaughn Glaser organization (formed ~ 1903) performed at local theaters such as the LYCEUM , COLUMBIA, (Keith’s) Prospect, and EUCLID AVENUE OPERA HOUSE. VGSC summer stock productions were frequently staged at the Garden Theater at 4505 Euclid Ave., the METROPOLITAN (now the Agora Theater) at E. 46th and Euclid Ave., and the Duchess Theater (5708 Euclid Ave.). The organization also enjoyed periodic residencies in Rochester, Syracuse, Columbus, and Detroit. Among its many stage successes were The Prisoner of Zenda, Sapho, Romeo and Juliet, Sherlock Holmes, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. By 1910, four Glaser-managed companies were performing over much of the eastern half of the country. Glaser’s presence in Cleveland diminished by the early 1920s when he launched a new stock company in Toronto (The Vaughan Glaser Players). Recurring residencies continued in other cities (including London, England) through much of the decade.
Glaser had begun making silent films in the mid-1910s, initially for the Sunbeam Motion Picture Corp., although he and his company offered stage performances well into the 1920s. In the early 1930s he relocated to southern California but continued to make stage appearances on Broadway and elsewhere as late as 1942.
During his time in Hollywood, Glaser appeared in more than two dozen films, including What a Life (with Jackie Cooper and Hedda Hopper, 1939), Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (with Robert Cummings and Norman Lloyd, 1942), I Married an Angel (with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, 1942), Pride of the Yankees (with Gary Cooper and Babe Ruth, 1942), and Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (with Cary Grant and Raymond Massey, 1944).
Glaser retired from the film industry in 1944 after appearing in more than 21 films in the previous five years. He died in Van Nuys, CA, in 1958.
Christopher Roy 4 May 2026