Whitney, F. C.

(1865?-1930)

   Born into the family of a successful Detroit theatre manager, Fred C. Whitney became a successful producer of mostly musicals and operettas, including The Fencing Master (1892), Rob Roy (1894), Marching Home (1902), Dolly Varden (1902), When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1902), Love's Lottery (1904), Piff! Paff!! Poufll! (1904), an Eddie Foy vehicle, and the enduringly popular Oscar Strauss operetta The Chocolate Soldier (1909), adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. Whitney also produced a few straight plays, including several by Stanislaus Stange: Quo Vadis (1900), which scored a major success, The School for Husbands (1904), and Divorce (1909), starring Mary Shaw. Whitney continued to produce until the mid-1920s, but with diminished success, although he brought Yiddish theatre star Bertha Kalish to Broadway in Rachel (1913).