Heaton, Harold R.

Newspaper cartoonist, actor, and playwright.

Harold Heaton joined the Chicago Daily Tribune staff around 1885, and gradually rose to the position of front-page cartoonist. By 1892 his drawings were a popular feature of the Sunday edition, and in 1893 he produced weekly commentaries on the World's Columbian Exposition. Although a successful artist, Heaton quit the Tribune in 1899 to join the theatrical company of William Gillette, and in 1906 wrote a play, Lady Jim. In 1908 Heaton returned to drawing for the Inter-Ocean. Heaton's cartoons at first consisted of commentary on national and international topics, and later narrowed to lampooning Chicago mayor Fred Busse and his circle, and state's attorney John Wayman. When the Inter-Ocean folded in 1914, Heaton apparently returned to theatrical life, acting on Broadway between 1920 and 1932.