Family Tree Tuesday – John Davis Lodge

John Davis Lodge

John Davis Lodge was an American actor turned politician, he was 79th Governor of Connecticut from 1951 to 1955, and U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Argentina and Switzerland. He graduated from Harvard University in 1925 and Harvard Law School in 1929. After a brief career as a lawyer, Lodge worked as an actor on screen and stage from 1933 to 1942. He appeared in movies such as Little Women, The Little Colonel in which he played Shirley Temple‘s father and he was Marlene Dietrich‘s co-star in The Scarlet Express. He was fluent in French and performed his roles in French in Maurice Tourneur’s Koenigsmark and in Max Ophüls’s De Mayerling á Sarajevo. Lodge served with the United States Navy during World War II as a lieutenant and lieutenant commander. He was a liaison officer between the French and American fleets.

John Davis Lodge was born on October 20, 1903 in Washington, D.C. to poet George Cabot Lodge and Mathilda Elizabeth Frelinghuysen Davis. George Cabot Lodge was named after his great-great grandfather George Cabot, a merchant, seaman and United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1791 to 1796. Lodge served as a naval cadet in the Spanish-American War and was a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, who penned a fond introduction for the posthumous 1911 collection Poems and Dramas of George Cabot Lodge. His father was politician and historian Henry Cabot Lodge.

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was the older brother of John Davis Lodge. He was a United States Senator from Massachusetts, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, South Vietnam, West Germany, and the Holy See, and was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.

John Davis Lodge married Italian dancer and actress Francesca Braggiotti in 1929. Their daughter, Lily Lodge, is an actress and acting coach. She is the co-founder of Actors Conservatory where she has coached actors such as Alec Baldwin and Brooke Shields.

John Davis Lodge played the father of Shirley Temple in a movie, but did you know they are actually related? They are 7th cousin’s once removed!

Check out John Davis Lodge’s family tree and see how you may be related!