Joseph Bromberg

J. Edward Bromberg
Bromberg in Queen of the Amazons (1947)
Born	Josef Bromberger (1903-12-25)December 25, 1903 Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary
Died	December 6, 1951(1951-12-06) (aged 47) London, England, UK
Cause of death	Heart Attack
Resting place	Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926–1950
Spouse(s)	Goldie Doberman (1927-?; 3 children)
Children	Marcia, Conrad Bromberg

Joseph Edward Bromberg (December 25, 1903 – December 6, 1951) was a Romanian-born American character actor in motion picture and stage productions dating mostly from the 1930s and 1940s.

Born Josef Bromberger to a Jewish family in Temeschburg (Temesvár), Austria-Hungary (now Timişoara, Romania), he was five years old when his family immigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, he went to work to help pay for acting lessons with the Russian coach Leo Bulgakov, who had trained with Constantin Stanislavski. By virtue of his physique, the short, somewhat rotund actor was destined to play secondary roles. Bromberg made his stage debut at the Greenwich Village Playhouse and in 1926 made his first appearance in a Broadway play. The following year, Bromberg married Goldie Doberman, with whom he had three children.

Occasionally credited as Joseph Bromberg, he performed secondary roles in 35 Broadway productions and 53 motion pictures until 1951. For two decades, Bromberg was highly regarded in the New York theatrical world and was a founding member of the Civic Repertory Theatre (1928–1930) and of the Group Theatre (1931-1940).

Bromberg made his screen debut in 1936 under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox. The versatile actor played a wide variety of roles ranging from a ruthless New York newspaper editor (in Charlie Chan on Broadway) to a despotic Arabian sheik (in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance). Although he spoke with no trace of an accent, he was often called upon to play humble immigrants of various nationalities. When Warner Oland, the actor who played Charlie Chan, died in 1938, Fox considered J. Edward Bromberg as a suitable replacement, but the role ultimately went to Sidney Toler. Fox began loaning Bromberg to other studios in 1939 and finally dropped him from the roster in 1941. He kept working for various producers, including a stint at Universal Pictures in the mid-1940s.