Davidson, Joseph, -1753

Epithet: Bookseller

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000213.0x0000a8

Joseph Davidson, better known as "Jo" or "Skipper", was born November 3, 1903 and raised in Hartford, Connecticut where he graduated from the Hartford Public High School in 1922. He attended Connecticut State College in 1922 and 1923 and also attended the Lelands Powers School in Boston from 1926 through 1929. He received his B.S from Boston University in 1929 and his M.A. from Teacher's College at Columbia University in 1930. In September of 1930, he took a job at Brooklyn Collge, which was still located on Willoughby Street for a salary of $1,200 a year. In 1931 he was married to his wife Alice and had three sons, Gordon, Michael and Robert. From the begining he was very popular with the students at Brooklyn College. The class of 1938 named him Most Versatile, Best Looking, Best Dressed, Best Personality and the faculty member who did the most for the class. He also acquired quickly two nicknames. One came about from the time he wore a little sailor hat to a rehearsal and a student started calling him "Skipper" and it stuck. The other came from his willignness to listen to students headaches, hence, the nickname the "aspirin dean". His first theater program was with the evening students at Brooklyn Collge and it was from this group that the Brooklyn College Players were founded. As evening classes were held until 11:00pm five nights a week, rehearsals could not start until that time and frequently went until 3:00am. Also, he later directed the day students who became known as the Varsity Players. In total, Jo Davidson directed approximately 150 plays at Brooklyn College, with the first being Mikolai Bogol's "The Government Inspector" and the last being "Hogan's Goat" in 1972. The play he may have been most proud of was the 1938 production of "In Abraham's Bosom" which featured an almost all black cast. The most difficult time of his career at Brooklyn College seems to have been his fight to be promoted from associate to full professor. First turned down in the fall of 1969, he continued to fight his case to the grievance committee in 1972, shortly before his retirement. On his behalf an extensive letter writing campaign was begun by students, faculty, and other colleagues, including many famous members of the theater world. Skipper's interests extended beyond Brooklyn College. He had an enormous interest in Jewish community affairs and was a lecturer, reader and stoy-teller who favored the works of Shalom Aleichem and the poems of Matthew Arnold. He also worked very hard for the founding of a course on Yiddish Theater at Brooklyn College. Upon his retirement in 1971, he started an acting career, appearing for 5 months in "The Dybbuk" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. He also appeared in several off-Broadway production, as an extra in half a dozen movies, and appeared in several TV shows. He spent his entire life involved in the theater and helped train numerous profesional actors, directors, playwrights and producers such as Sandy Baron, Sam Levenson, Howard Rodman and Alfred Drake. On April 3, 1981 at the age of 77 he died of a heart attack, active in theater until the end.

From the description of The Papers of Joseph Davidson; 1930-1980 1937-1960. (Brooklyn College). WorldCat record id: 424522028