Gus Heege

Augustus J. "Gus" Heege (1862 – February 2, 1898) was an American playwright and actor, whose works were popular at the end of the 19th century.

Early life A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Gus Heege was the son of a prominent member of the city's police department. Soon after graduating from Cleveland's Central High School, he headed East to seek his fortune on the New York stage.

Not everyone found his characters believable. In reviewing Yon Yonson a critic wrote: "The hero is a Swede who speaks English with Scandinavian dialect, the accuracy of which is vouched for by Mr. William M. Dunlevy, the enterprising manager of the Park Theatre, and Mr. Jacob Litt, the manager of this particular play, who are old log-rollers themselves. We are quite willing to accept their word for it, especially as no man would be likely to invent such a dialect. But the Swedes and Norwegians we have in the East do not speak English in the Yon Yonson way."

The author Willa Cather gave a decidedly negative review to Heege's Rush City in the Nebraska State Journal while conceding that Yon Yonson had been a "very good comedy". In 1931 Cather wrote that before 1913, when her novel O Pioneers! was published,

Ben Hendricks (1868-1930) was the actor most associated with Heege's Scandinavian dialect plays. He starred in all three of them and toured with revivals of Ole Olson until 1912, over twenty years after the play's opening.

Gus Heege's final work, Amalia Mora, was a Swedish-American opera that premiered in 1901. His son, Philip, also became a Broadway actor.

Selected works Wanted: The Earth 1887 Criss Cross 1888 Sky Skraper 1888 Ole Olson 1889 Yon Yonson 1890 Rush City 1893 Yenuine Yentleman 1895 Amalia Mora 1901