Character actor Edward Arnold was born in New York to German immigrant parents. Orphaned at 11, Arnold supported himself with a series of manual labor jobs. He made his first stage appearance at 12, playing Lorenzo in an amateur production of "The Merchant of Venice" at the East Side Settlement House. Encouraged to continue acting by playwright/journalist John D. Barry, Arnold became a professional at 15, joining the prestigious Ben Greet Players shortly afterward. After touring with such notables as Ethel Barrymore and Maxine Elliot, he did bit and extra work at Chicago's Essanay Film Studios and New Jersey's World Studios during the early teens. Hoping to become a slender leading man, Arnold found that his fortune lay in character parts and accordingly beefed up his body. Following several seasons on Broadway, Arnold made his talking picture debut as a gangster in 1933's "Whistling in the Dark". He continued playing supporting villains until landing the title role in "Diamond Jim" (1935) which required him to add 25 pounds to his already substantial frame; he repeated this characterization in the 1940 biopic "Lillian Russell". Other starring roles followed in films like "Sutter's Gold" (1936), "Come and Get It" (1936), and "Toast of New York" (1937) but in 1937 Arnold's career momentum halted briefly when he was labeled "box office poison" by a committee of film exhibitors. Undaunted, Arnold accepted lesser billing in secondary roles, remaining in demand until his death. A favorite of director Frank Capra (who frequently chided the actor for the "phony laugh" that was his trademark), Arnold appeared in a trio of Capra films, playing Jimmy Stewart's millionaire father in "You Can't Take It With You" (1938), a corrupt political boss in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), and a would-be fascist in "Meet John Doe" (1941). Despite the fact that he was not considered a box-office draw, Arnold continued to be cast in starring roles from time to time, notably Daniel Webster in 1941's "The Devil and Daniel Webster", as blind detective Duncan Maclain in "Eyes in the Night" (1942) and "The Hidden Eye" (1945). During the 1940s, Arnold became increasingly active in politics, carrying this interest over into a radio anthology, "Mr. President", which ran from 1947 through 1953. He was co-founder of the "I Am an American Foundation," an officer of Hollywood's Permanent Charities Committee, and a president of the Screen Actors Guild. Though a staunch right-wing conservative (he once considered running for Senate on the Republican ticket), Arnold labored long and hard to protect his fellow actors from the persecution of the HUAC "communist witch-hunt." Edward Arnold's last film appearance was in the potboiler "Miami Expose" (1956). He died at his home in Encino, California, from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 26, 1956, at age 66.
Sidney Blackmer had planned to study law at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, but football and amateur theatricals held more interest for him. Heading east to make his fortune as an actor, Blackmer accepted day work at various film studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, reportedly appearing in the pioneering Pearl White serial "The Perils of Pauline" in 1914. After making his Broadway bow in 1917, Blackmer served as a lieutenant in World War I. His star-making stage role was the title character in 1921's "The Mountain Man". Eager to have a go at all branches of entertainment, Blackmer sang on radio in the 1920s, and participated in the first experimental dramatic presentations of the Allen B. DuMont television series. In films, Blackmer was usually cast as a smooth society villain; as The Big Boy in the 1931 gangster flick "Little Caesar". He appeared in both sinister and sympathetic roles in a handful of Shirley Temple pictures and also starred as pulp-novel detective Thatcher Colt in the 1943 film "The Panther's Claw". In 1950, Blackmer won the Tony award for his portrayal of Doc in the William Inge play "Come Back Little Sheba"; he later created the role of Boss Finley in Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth". Blackmer is remembered for his more than a dozen portrayals of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and for his role in the Academy Award-winning 1968 Roman Polanski film about urban New York witches, "Rosemary's Baby", in which he played an over-solicitous neighbor. For several years, he served as the national vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Sidney Blackmer died of cancer on October 6, 1973, at the age of 78.
Lurene Tuttle was a character actress and drama coach whose six-decade career included every dramatic medium, including stage, radio, film and television.
In 1936, she began her radio career opposite Dick Powell in the CBS series "Hollywood Hotel." Within a year, she was "working any time I wasn't sleeping," with roles in anthologies and running parts in such radio staples as "Sam Spade," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," "A Date With Judy" and "The Red Skelton Show."
Her film debut was in "Heaven Only Knows" in 1947. Her career continued with featured roles in Orson Welles' "Macbeth," and with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy in "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." Other films included "Niagara" with Marilyn Monroe, "The Glass Slipper," "The Sweet Smell of Success," "Psycho," "The Fortune Cookie," "Walking Tall" and "The Manitou. "Lurene Tuttle was the wife of radio actor/announcer Mel Ruick and the mother of musical comedy actress Barbara Ruick. She became a respected acting coach and teacher until her death from cancer in 1986 at age 78.
American actor Hugh Beaumont originally studied for the clergy, remaining busy as a lay minister throughout his acting career. After stage experience, Beaumont arrived in Hollywood in 1940. While most of the draftable leading men were away during World War II, Beaumont enjoyed a brief spell of stardom; his faint resemblance to actor Lloyd Nolan enabled Beaumont to inherit Nolan's screen role of detective Michael Shayne in a series of inexpensive films. After the war, Beaumont returned to character parts, contributing memorable moments to such films as "The Blue Dahlia" (1946) and "The Guilt of Janet Ames" (1947). He also played quite a few villains during this period; fans of Beaumont's later television work are in for a jolt as they watch the affable Hugh Beaumont connive and murder his way through 1948's "Money Madness". During the early 1950s, Beaumont frequently popped up in uncredited featured roles at 20th Century-Fox, most prominently in "Phone Call From a Stranger" (1952) as the doctor killed by drunken driver Michael Rennie, and in "The Revolt of Mamie Stover" (1956) as a Honolulu cop who advises good-time girl Jane Russell to get out of town. In 1957, Beaumont was cast as the father Ward Cleaver on the popular sitcom "Leave It to Beaver". While he despaired that the series might ruin his chances for good film roles, Beaumont remained with the series until its cancellation in 1963. Hugh Beaumont retired from show business in the late 1960s, launching a second career as a successful Christmas tree farmer. He was forced to retire in 1972 after suffering a stroke from which he never fully recovered. On May 14, 1982, Hugh Beaumont died of a heart attack while visiting his son in Munich, Germany. His ashes were scattered on the family-owned island on Lake Wabana, Minnesota.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Strother Martin was the National Junior Springboard Diving Champion when he came to Hollywood as a swimming coach in the late 1940s. He stuck around to play a few movie bits and extra roles before finally receiving a role of substance in "The Asphalt Jungle" in 1950. Lean and limber in his early day, Martin was frequently cast in parts which called upon his athletic prowess such as a drawling big-league ball player in 1951's "Rhubarb". As his face grew more pocked and his body more paunched with each advancing year, Martin put his reedy, whiny voice and sinister squint to excellent use as a villain, most often in westerns. It took him nearly 20 years to matriculate from character actor to character star. In 1967, Martin skyrocketed to fame as the sadistic prison-farm captain in "Cool Hand Luke": his character's signature line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate", became a national catchphrase. Strother Martin appeared in memorable roles in such films as " True Grit", "Rooster Cogburn", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and "The Wild Bunch". While he continued accepting secondary roles for the rest of his career, Martin was awarded top billing in two sleazy but likable films, "Brotherhood of Satan" and "Ssssssss". A veteran of scores of television shows, Strother Martin was seen on a weekly basis as Aaron Donager in "Hotel De Paree" in 1959 and as Jimmy Stewart's country cousin in "Hawkins" in 1973. Strother Martin died of a heart attack in 1980 at age 61.
Born Barbara Goldbach in Queens, New York, on August 27, 1947, actress Barbara Bach turns 64 years old today.
Character actor Billy Barty made many film appearances from 1931 on, most often cast as bratty children due to his height. He was a peripheral member of an Our Gang rip-off in the Mickey McGuire comedy shorts, portrayed the infant-turned-pig in "Alice in Wonderland" in 1933, did a turn in blackface as a shrunken Eddie Cantor in "Roman Scandals" in 1933, and he frequently popped up as a lasciviously leering baby in the risqué musical highlights of Busby Berkeley's Warner Brothers films. One of Barty's most celebrated cinema moments occurred in 1937's "Nothing Sacred" in which, playing a small boy, he pops up out of nowhere to bite Fredric March in the leg. Barty was busy but virtually anonymous in films since he seldom received screen credit. TV audiences began to connect his name with his face in the 1950s when Barty was featured on various variety series hosted by bandleader Spike Jones. Disdainful of certain professional "little people" who rely on size alone to get laughs, Barty was seen at his very best on the Jones programs, dancing, singing, and delivering dead-on impressions: the diminutive actor's takeoff on Liberace was almost unbearably funny. Though he was willing to poke fun at himself on camera, Barty was fiercely opposed to TV and film producers who exploited midgets and dwarves and as he continued his career into the 1970s and 80s, Barty saw to it that his own roles were devoid of patronization; in fact, he often secured parts that could have been portrayed by so-called normal actors, proof that one's stature has little to do with one's talent. One of his most memorable roles was that of a Bible salesman who Goldie Hawn mistakes for a killer in "Foul Play" in 1978. A two-fisted advocate of equitable treatment of short actors, Billy Barty took time away from his many roles in movies and TV to maintain his support organization The Little People of America and the Billy Barty Foundation. Billy Barty died in December 2000 of heart failure at age 76.
Had he been born a decade earlier, character actor Denver Pyle might well have joined the ranks of western-movie comedy sidekicks. Instead, Pyle, a Colorado farm boy, opted for studying law, working his way through school by playing drums in a dance band. Suddenly one day, Pyle became disenchanted with law and returned to his family farm with no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Working in the oil fields of Oklahoma, he moved on to the shrimp boats of Galveston, Texas. A short stint as a page at NBC radio studios in 1940 didn't immediately lead to a showbiz career as it has for so many others; instead, Pyle was inspired to perform by a mute oilfield coworker who was able to convey his thought with body language. Studying under such masters as Michael Chekhov and Maria Ouspenskaya, Pyle was able to achieve small movie and TV roles. He worked frequently on the western series of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry; not yet bearded and grizzled, Pyle was often seen as deputies, farmers, and cattle rustlers. When his hair turned prematurely grey in his early 30s, Pyle graduated to banker, sheriff, and judge roles in theatrical westerns. He also was a regular on two TV series, "Code 3" in 1956 and "Tammy" in 1966. On television he played Briscoe Darling, the head of the Darling clan, on "The Andy Griffith Show." But his real breakthrough role didn't happen until 1967, when Pyle was cast as the Texas Ranger in "Bonnie and Clyde" who is kidnapped and humilated by the robbers and then shows up at the end of the film to supervise the bloody machine-gun deaths of Bonnie and Clyde. From this point forward, Denver Pyle's roles were vastly improved - and his screen image was softened and humanized by a full, bushy beard. Returning to TV, Pyle played the Doris Day's father on "The Doris Day Show" ; was Mad Jack, the costar/narrator of "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams"; and spent six years as Uncle Jesse Duke on "The Dukes of Hazzard". Looking stockier but otherwise unchanged, Denver Pyle was briefly seen in the 1994 hit "Maverick", playing an elegantly dishonest cardsharp who jauntily doffs his hat as he's dumped off of a riverboat. Denver Pyle died of lung cancer in 1997 at age 77.
One of the most prolific character actors, Dabbs Greer played small-town doctors, bankers, merchants, druggists, mayors, and ministers most of his career. His purse-lipped countenance and Midwestern twang was equally effective in taciturn villainous roles. Essentially a bit player in films of the 1950s, Greer was given more screen time than usual as a New York detective in "House of Wax", while his surface normality served as excellent contrast to the extraterrestrial goings-on in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". A television actor since the dawn of the TV era, Greer has shown up in hundreds of TV supporting roles, including the "origin" episode of the original Superman series in which he played the dangling dirigible worker rescued in mid-air by the Man of Steel. Greer also played the recurring roles of storekeeper Mr. Jones on "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 1960 and Reverend Alden on "Little House on the Prairie" from 1974 to 1983. Showing no signs of slowing down, Dabbs Greer continued accepting roles in such films as "Two Moon Junction", "Pacific Heights", and "Green Mile". He died following a battle with kidney and heart disease, on April 28, 2007, not quite a month after his 90th birthday.
Character actor Dub Taylor was the personification of grizzled old western characters. Prior to becoming a movie actor, Taylor played the harmonica and xylophone in vaudeville. He used his musical ability to make his film debut as the zany Ed Carmichael in Frank Capra's "You Can't Take it With You" in 1938. He next appeared in a small role in the musical "Carefree" and then began a long stint as a comical B-western sidekick for some of Hollywood's most enduring cowboy heroes. During the 1950s he became a part of "The Roy Rogers Show" on television. About that time, he also began to branch out and appear in different film genres ranging from comedies such as "No time for Sergeants" to crime dramas such as "Crime Wave". He has also played on many TV series including "The Andy Griffith Show". One of his most memorable feature film roles was as the man who turned in the outlaws in "Bonnie and Clyde".
The daughter of a retired sea captain, British actress Norma Varden was a piano prodigy. After studying in Paris she played concerts into her teens but at last decided that this was be an uncertain method of making a living--so she went to the security of acting. In her first stage appearance in "Peter Pan", Varden, not yet twenty, portrayed the adult role of Mrs. Darling, setting the standard for her subsequent stage and film work; too tall and mature-looking for ingenues, she would enjoy a long career in character roles. Bored with dramatic assignments, Varden gave comedy a try at the famous Aldwych Theatre, where from 1929 through 1933 she was resident character comedienne in the theatre's well-received marital farces. After her talkie debut in the comedy "A Night Like This" in 1930, she remained busy on the British film scene for over a decade. Moving to Hollywood in 1941, she found that the typecasting system frequently precluded large roles. Though she was well served as Robert Benchley's wife in "The Major and the Minor" her next assignment was the unbilled role of a pickpocket victim's wife in "Casablanca". Her work encompassed radio as well as films for the rest of the decade; in nearly all her assignments Norma played a haughty British or New York aristocrat who looked down with disdain at the commoners. By the 1950s, she was enjoying such sizable parts as the society lady who is nearly strangled by Robert Walker in "Strangers on a Train", the bejeweled wife of Charles Coburn in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", George Sanders' dragon-like mother in "Jupiter's Darling", and the Von Trapps' housekeeper in "The Sound of Music". After countless television and film roles, Norma Varden retired in 1972, spending most of her time thereafter as a spokesperson for the Screen Actors
Balding, slightly paunchy, with an open, jovial face, character actor Eugene Roche made a name for himself in a project which gave him no on-screen billing: the friendly kitchen employee who sang the brief "Ajax for dishes" ditty in a series of detergent commercials. Roche's breakthrough film was "Slaughterhouse Five" in 1971, in which he played the likable POW Edgar Derby whose fascination with war souvenirs results in his perfunctory execution at the hands of his German captors. Not all of Roche's film roles were this benign: in "Foul Play" in 1978 he is a professional assassin who impersonates his murdered archbishop brother, the better to draw a bead on the Pope during an American visit. A reassuringly familiar presence on TV, Eugene Roche also had regular roles on several series, including "The Corner Bar" (1972), "Good Time Harry" (1980), "Webster" (1984), "Take Five" (1987) and "Lenny" (1990).
John Marley's craggy face, cement-mixer voice and shock of white hair were familiar to stagegoers from the 1930s onward. Marley started out as one-half of a comedy team but soon found that his true metier was drama. In films on an infrequent basis since 1941, Marley stepped up his moviemaking activities in the mid-1960s, playing such sizable roles as Jane Fonda's father in "Cat Ballou" in 1965. He won a Venice Film Festival award for his performance as a miserable middle-aged husband in John Cassavetes' "Faces" in 1968 and was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of Ali MacGraw's blue-collar father in "Love Story". Marley's most unforgettable role was in "The Godfather" in 1972 in which, as movie mogul Lou Woltz, he wakes up to find himself sharing his bed with a horse's head.
Though she got her start in films late in life, Anne Haney would go on to become a dependable character actress with a strong reputation and a healthy sense of humor. Born in 1934 in Memphis, Tennessee, she studied radio, drama, and television at the University of North Carolina before marrying Georgia Public Television executive John Haley. Soon raising a daughter and devoting herself to family life, Haney began to seek work in the local theater in the 1970s, touring with Noel Coward's Fallen Angels and joining the Screen Actors Guild in preparation for her family's post-retirement move to Southern California. Her plans sadly stifled by her husband's death in 1980, with her daughter in college Haney was on her own for her Westward voyage, though soon after arriving she got an agent and a role in "Hopscotch" in 1980. Alternating between stage and screen for the duration of her Hollywood career, Haney gained over 50 credits with her frequent appearances in television and film. With memorable roles in such films as "Liar Liar" and "Mrs. Doubtfire", in addition to her appearances on "Matlock", "L.A. Law", "The Geena Davis Show", and "Ally McBeal", Haney's likeable personality proved both enduring and endearing. On May 26, 2001, Anne Haney died of natural causes in Studio City, California, at age 67.
Ruth Shoecraft was born in Michigan in 1895 and raised in Ohio, where her father served as a county sheriff. At 20, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts but put her theatrical aspirations on the back burner when she married a Florida widower named Patrick John McDevitt. When her husband died in 1934, she returned to the stage as Ruth McDevitt, first in community theatre, then on Broadway and in radio. She made her first film in 1951, but for the most part steered clear of Hollywood, preferring to appear in such Manhattan-based plays as "The Solid Gold Cadillac", "Picnic", and "The Best Man". McDevitt's entree into weekly television was on the classic early-1950s sitcom "Mr. Peepers", in which she played Wally Cox's mother. Her next series stint was as rifle-wielding Grandma Hanks in the short-lived 1967 western comedy "Pistols and Petticoats". During the 1960s, she returned to films, usually playing a dotty little old lady with more on the ball than people suspected. Still going strong in the early 1970s, she played recurring roles on the TV series "All in the Family" and "Kolchak". Ruth McDevitt made her last appearance at age 80 in the made-for-TV feature "One of My Wives is Missing" in 1976.
Character actor Keenan Wynn was the son of legendary comedian Ed Wynn. After attending St. John's Military Academy, Wynn obtained his few professional theatrical jobs with the Maine Stock Company. Wynn developed into a fine comic and dramatic actor on his own in several Broadway plays and on radio. He was signed to an MGM contract in 1942, scoring a personal and professional success as the sarcastic sergeant in 1944's "See Here Private Hargrove" in 1944. Wynn's newfound popularity as a supporting actor aroused a bit of jealousy from his father, who underwent professional doldrums in the 1940s; father and son grew closer in the 1950s when Ed, launching a second career as a dramatic actor, often turned to his son for moral support and professional advice. Wynn's film career flourished into the 1960s and 1970s, during which time he frequently appeared in such Disney films as "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "The Love Bug" as apoplectic villain Alonso Hawk. Wynn also starred in such TV series as "Troubleshooters" and "Dallas". Encroaching deafness and a drinking problem plagued Wynn in his final years, but he always delivered the goods onscreen.
KEENAN WYNN FILMOGRAPHY
Chained (1934)
Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)
Northwest Rangers (1942)
For Me and My Gal (1942)
See Here, Private Hargrove (1944)
Since You Went Away (1944)
Marriage Is a Private Affair (1944)
Between Two Women (1944)
Lost Angel (1944)
Without Love (1945)
What Next, Corporal Hargrove? (1945)
Weekend at the Waldorf (1945)
The Clock (1945)
The Cockeyed Miracle (1946)
No Leave, No Love (1946)
The Thrill of Brazil (1946)
Easy to Wed (1946)
Song of the Thin Man (1947)
The Hucksters (1947)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
My Dear Secretary (1948)
B.F.'s Daughter (1948)
Neptune's Daughter (1949)
That Midnight Kiss (1949)
Three Little Words (1950)
It's a Big Country (1950)
Love That Brute (1950)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Royal Wedding (1951)
Texas Carnival (1951)
Mr. Imperium (1951)
Angels in the Outfield (1951)
Kind Lady (1951)
Sky Full of Moon (1952)
Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
The Belle of New York (1952)
Holiday for Sinners (1952)
Desperate Search (1952)
Fearless Fagan (1952)
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Battle Circus (1953)
Code Two (1953)
All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953)
The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
Tennessee Champ (1954)
Men of the Fighting Lady (1954)
The Glass Slipper (1955)
The Marauders (1955)
Shack out on 101 (1955)
Darkness At Noon (1955)
Running Wild (1955)
The Naked Hills (1956)
The Great Man (1956)
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956)
Johnny Concho (1956)
The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)
Joe Butterfly (1957
Don't Go Near the Water (1957
The Perfect Furlough (1958)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Deep Six (1958)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
That Kind of Woman (1959)
A Hole in the Head (1959
The Bay of Saint Michel (1960)
The Crowded Sky (1960)
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
The Power and the Glory (1961)
Black City (1961)
The Losers (1963)
Son of Flubber (1963)
Duello nel Texas (1963)
Nightmare in the Sun (1964)
Promise Her Anything (1964)
the Americanization of Emily (1964)
The Patsy (1964)
Stage to Thunder Rock (1964)
Man in the Middle (1964)
Bikini Beach (1964)
Honeymoon Hotel (1964)
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The Great Race (1965)
Around the World under the Sea (1965)
Stagecoach (1966)
The Night of the Grizzly (1966)
Point Blank (1967)
Run Like a Thief (1967)
Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
Warning Shot (1967)
The War Wagon (1967)
Quella carogna dell'ispettore Sterling (1968)
The Longest Hunt (1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Frame-Up (1968)
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
The Monitors (1969)
Viva Max! (1969)
Young Lawyers (1969)
Smith! (1969)
Love-In at Ground Zero (1969)
80 Steps to Jonah (1969)
MacKenna's Gold (1969)
A Hard Case of the Blues (1969)
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (1970)
The House on Greenapple Road (1970)
Loving (1970)
Horror House (1970)
Terror in the Sky (1971)
The Man with the Icy Eyes (1971)
The Manipulator (1971)
Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)
Assault on the Wayne (1971)
Five Savage Men (1971)
B.J. Lang Presents (1971)
Cannon (1971)
The Mechanic (1972)
Snowball Express (1972)
Wild in the Sky (1972)
Cancel My Reservation (1972)
Assignment: Munich (1972)
Night Train to Terror (1973)
The Internecine Project (1973)
Hijack (1973)
The Legend of Earl Durand (1974)
Hit Lady (1974)
Herbie Rides Again (1974)
The Demon and the Mummy (1975)
The Man Who Would Not Die (1975)
Target Risk (1975)
The Devil's Rain (1975)
A Woman for All Men (1975)
Nashville (1975)
He Is My Brother (1975)
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976)
The Longest Drive (1976)
The Shaggy D.A. (1976)
The Killer Inside Me (1976)
20 Shades of Pink (1976)
High Velocity (1976)
Sex and the Married Woman (1976)
Orca (1977)
Mission to Glory: A True Story (1977)
Memories in My Mind (1977)
The Glove (1978)
The Lucifer Complex (1978)
Piranha (1978)
The Bastard (1978)
Monster (1978)
Laserblast (1978)
Coach (1978)
Sunburn (1979)
The Treasure Seekers (1979)
The Billion Dollar Threat (1979)
The Dark (1979)
Jamaican Gold (1979)
Mid-Knight Rider (1979)
Hollywood Knights (1979)
Just Tell Me What You Want (1980)
Mom, the Wolfman and Me (1980)
The Monkey Mission (1981)
The Last Unicorn (1982)
Best Friends (1982)
The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982)
A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982)
The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1983)
Wavelength (1983)
Hysterical (1983)
Prime Risk (1984)
Call to Glory (1984)
Mirrors (1985)
Dalton (1985)
Code of Vengeance (1985)
Hyper-Sapien: People from Another Star (1986)
Black Moon Rising (1986)
The Last Precinct (1986)
American actor Charles Coburn had already put in nearly forty years as a stage actor, producer, and director (specializing in Shakespeare) before making his screen debut at age 61 in "Of Human Hearts" in 1938. At home in any kind of film, Coburn was most popular in comedies and in 1943 won an Academy Award for his role in "The More the Merrier" as the bombastic but likable business executive forced by the wartime housing shortage to share a Washington D.C. apartment with Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea. Coburn continued playing variations on his elderly scalawag character throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, most notably as Marilyn Monroe's sugar daddy in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in 1953. The actor also kept busy on stage, touring with the Theatre Guild as Falstaff in "Merry Wives of Windsor" and supervising the annual Mohawk Drama Festival at Schenectady's Union College, which he'd founded in 1934. Moving into television work with the enthusiasm of a novice, the octogenarian Coburn continued acting right up to his death. Coburn's last appearance, one week before his passing, was as Grandpa Vanderhoff in an Indianapolis summer-stock production of "You Can't Take It With You".
CHARLES COBURN FILMOGRAPHY
Of Human Hearts (1938)
Vivacious Lady (1938)
Bachelor Mother (1939)
Idiot's Delight (1939)
In Name Only (1939)
Made for Each Other (1939)
Stanley and Livingstone (1939)
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
Edison, the Man (1940)
Kings Row (1941)
The Lady Eve (1941)
George Washington Slept Here (1942)
In This Our Life (1942)
The More the Merrier (1943)
Wilson (1944)
Rhapsody in Blue (1945)
Colonel Effingham's Raid (1946)
Lured (1947)
The Paradine Case (1948)
Impact (1949)
Mr. Music (1950)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Trouble Along the Way (1953)
The Long Wait (1954)
How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Town on Trial (1957)
The Story of Mankind (1957)
How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1958)
John Paul Jones (1959)
Stranger in My Arms (1959)
The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959)
Pepe (1960)
Sydney Greenstreet ranked among Hollywood's consummate character actors, a classic rogue whose villainous turns in motion pictures like "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon" remain among the most memorable and enigmatic depictions of evil ever captured on film. Born December 27, 1879, in Sandwich, England, Greenstreet's initial ambition was to make his fortune as a tea planter and toward that aim he moved to Sri Lanka at the age of 18. A drought left him penniless, however, and he soon returned to England where he worked a variety of odd jobs while studying acting in the evening under Ben Greet. In 1902 he made his theatrical debut portraying a murderer in "Sherlock Holmes" and two years later he traveled with Greet to the United States. After making his Broadway debut in "Everyman", Greenstreet's American residency continued for the rest of his life. Greenstreet remained exclusively a theatrical performer for over three decades. He shifted easily from musical comedy to Shakespeare and in 1933 he joined the Lunts in "Idiot's Delight", performing with their Theatre Guild for the duration of the decade. While appearing in Los Angeles in a touring production of "There Shall Be No Night" in 1940, Greenstreet met John Huston who requested he play the ruthless Guttman in his 1941 film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon". A heavy, imposing man, Greenstreet was perfectly cast as the massive yet strangely effete Guttman, a dignified dandy who was in truth the very essence of malevolence. Making his film debut at the age of 62, he appeared alongside the two actors with whom he would be forever connected, star Humphrey Bogart and fellow character actor Peter Lorre. The acclaim afforded Greenstreet for "The Maltese Falcon" earned him a long-term contract with Warner Brothers, where, after appearing in "They Died With Their Boots On", he again played opposite Bogart in 1942's "Across the Pacific". In 1942 he appeared briefly in "Casablanca", another reunion with Bogart as well as Lorre. When Greenstreet and Lorre again re-teamed in 1943's "Background in Danger" their fate was sealed and they appeared together numerous other times including 1944's "Passage to Marseilles" (again with Bogart), "The Mask of Dimitrios", "The Conspirators", and "Hollywood Canteen", in which they portrayed themselves. Yearning to play comedy, Greenstreet got his wish in 1945's "Pillow to Post" which cast him alongside Ida Lupino. He also appeared opposite Bogart again in the drama "Conflict" and with Barbara Stanwyck in "Christmas in Connecticut". In 1952, Sydney Greenstreet retired from films.He died two years later on January 18, 1954.
SYDNEY GREENSTREET FILMOGRAPHY
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
Across the Pacific (1942)
Casablanca (1942)
Background to Danger (1943)
Between Two Worlds (1944)
Hollywood Canteen (1944)
Passage to Marseille (1944)
The Conspirators (1944)
The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Conflict (1945)
Devotion (1945)
Pillow to Post (1945)
The Verdict (1946)
Three Strangers (1946)
That Way with Women (1947)
The Hucksters (1947)
Ruthless (1948)
The Velvet Touch (1948)
The Woman in White (1948)
Flamingo Road (1949)
It's a Great Feeling (1949)
Malaya (1949)
Intending to become a dentist like his father, American character actor Edgar Buchanan wound up with grades so bad in college that he was compelled to take an easy course to improve his average. Buchanan chose a course in play interpretation and after listening to a few recitations of Shakespeare he was stagestruck. After completing dental school, Buchanan plied his oral surgery skills in the summertime, devoting the fall, winter and spring months to acting in stock companies and at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He was given a screen test by Warner Brothers Studios in 1940, received several bit roles, then worked himself up to supporting parts upon transferring to Columbia Pictures. Though still comparatively youthful, Buchanan specialized in grizzled old westerners, with a propensity towards villainy or at least larceny. The actor worked at every major studio over the next few years, still holding onto his dentist's license just in case he needed something to fall back on. Though he preferred movie work to the hurried pace of TV filming, Buchanan was quite busy in television's first decade, costarring with William Boyd on the immensely popular "Hopalong Cassidy" series, then receiving a starring series of his own, "Judge Roy Bean", in 1954. Buchanan became an international success in 1963 thanks to his regular role as the lovably lazy Uncle Joe Bradley on the classic sitcom "Petticoat Junction", which ran until 1970. After that, the actor experienced a considerably shorter run on the adventure series "Cade's County", which starred Buchanan's close friend Glenn Ford. Buchanan's last movie role was in "Benji" in 1974.
EDGAR BUCHANAN FILMOGRAPHY
My Son is Guilty (1939)
Too Many Husbands (1940)
Arizona (1940)
Texas (1941)
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Destroyer (1943)
Abilene Town (1946)
Framed (1947)
The Black Arrow (1948)
The Man From Colorado (1949)
The Big Hangover (1950)
Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
Rawhide (1951)
Shane (1953)
She Couldn't Say No (1954)
Make Haste to Live (1954)
Human Desire (1954)
Destry (1954)
Wichita (1955)
Rage at Dawn (1955)
Come Next Spring (1956)
The Sheepman (1958)
The Devil's Partner (1958)
Day of the Badman (1958)
It Started With a Kiss (1959)
Hound Dog Man (1959)
Edge of Eternity (1959)
Cimarron (1960)
The Comancheros (1961)
Tammy Tell Me True (1961)
Ride the High Country (1962)
A Ticklish Affair (1963)
Move Over, Darling (1963)
McLintock! (1963)
The Rounders (1965)
Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
Angel in My Pocket (1968)
Benji (1974)
Madge Blake was an American character actress best remembered for her role as Aunt Harriet Cooper on "Batman" from 1966-1968. Madge Blake's father, Albert Cummings, was a Methodist who discouraged her entry into acting. As such, she stayed out of acting until later in life. During World War II, she and her husband worked in Utah on construction of the detonator for the atomic bomb and performed such jobs as testing equipment destined for the Manhattan Project. Though she was five years his senior, she was a niece of actor Milburn Stone (Doc Adams on "Gunsmoke"). She took advantage of his influence to help her land acting roles. In the middle 1950s, she appeared on Rod Cameron's "City Detective" crime drama and in Ray Milland's sitcom, "Meet Mr. McNutley", renamed in the second season as "The Ray Milland Show". Blake also appeared in four episodes of the NBC sitcom "It's a Great Life", which aired from 1954-1956. In addition to her "Batman" role, Blake portrayed the baffled Margaret Mondello, mother of Larry Mondello (played by Rusty Stevens) on "Leave it to Beaver" in 1957, gushy gossip columnist Dora Bailey in "Singin' in the Rain" in 1952, and was a model for one of the fairies in Disney's animated version of "Sleeping Beauty" in 1959. In 1961, she guest starred in the episode "A View of Murder" of the crime drama "The Brothers Brannagan". Blake portrayed the role of Flora McMichael, a romantic interest to Walter Brennan's Grandpa Amos McCoy in "The Real McCoys", a popular 1950s and 1960s situation comedy about a West Virginia mountain family that relocated to southern California. Prior to her role in "Batman", she appeared in the pilot episode of "The Addams Family" (broadcast in the U.S in September 1964) as Miss Comstock, an official from the Addams' children's school. Blake also appeared in a memorable episode of "I Love Lucy" in 1957 with George Reeves guest-starring as Superman. Declining health saw her role as Aunt Harriet reduced, and with the introduction of Batgirl in the third and final season of "Batman", she only appeared in two episodes that season as a guest role. She was admitted to a hospital after falling at home and fracturing her ankle. She died in 1969 at the age of 69 in the hospital from a heart attack, not long after Batman was cancelled.
MADGE BLAKE FILMOGRAPHY
Singin in the Rain (1952)
The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
Rhapsody (1954)
Fireman Save My Child (1954)
The Tender Trap (1955)
It s Always Fair Weather (1955)
The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)
Loving You (1957)
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)
Sergeants 3 (1962)
Follow Me, Boys! (1966)
Batman: The Movie (1966)
