Gus Heege

Gus Heege
Born	Augustus J. Heege 1862 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Died	February 2, 1898 (aged 36) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright, actor
Spouse(s)	Mary Lillian "Lilly" Mandeville
Children	Philip 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.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Gus Heege was the son of a prominent member of the city’s police department. While growing up in the area he attended the district school in nearby Brecksville, where he entertained his fellow students with all manner of performances, giving an early indication of his acting talents. Soon after graduating from Cleveland’s Central High School, he headed East to seek his fortune on the New York stage.

A talented actor, Heege often took the leading role in his productions. Although his output was varied, he is largely remembered for the Swedish immigrant trilogy Ole Olson (1889), Yon Yonson (1890) and Yenuine Yentleman (1895). These plays established the character of the comic Swedish immigrant in American theater.

Heege, who was of German ancestry, maintained that careful observation of the newcomers had enabled him to faithfully portray them on stage. A newspaper account told of his field research in the "Little Scandinavia" of northern Wisconsin, where large numbers of Swedes, Norwegians and Danes had settled.

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."

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