The Thin Man Goes Home

William Powell (Actor) .. Nicholas Charles

Born: July 29, 1892
Died: March 05, 1984
Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Trivia: Originally planning to become a lawyer, William Powell chose instead to pursue a career as an actor, dropping out of the University of Kansas to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Edward G. Robinson and Joseph Schildkraut. He made his Broadway debut in 1912, and within a few years had attained stardom in urbane, sophisticated roles. The sleek, moustachioed young actor entered films in 1922, playing the first of many villainous roles in John Barrymore's Sherlock Holmes. He finally broke out of the bad guy mode when talkies came in; his clipped, precise speech patterns and authoritative demeanor were ideally suited to such "gentleman detective" roles as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case, the Kennel Murder Case, and others in the Vance series. In 1933 he moved from Warner Bros. to MGM, where he co-starred with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). So well-received was the Powell-Loy screen teaming that the actors were paired together in several subsequent MGM productions, most memorably the delightful Thin Man series and the 1936 blockbuster The Great Ziegfeld, in which Powell played the title character and Loy was cast as Ziegfeld's second wife, Billie Burke. Away from the screen for nearly a year due to a serious illness, Powell returned in 1944, curtailing his film activities thereafter. As he eased into his late fifties he reinvented himself as a character actor, offering superbly etched performances as a lamebrained crooked politician in The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) and the lovably autocratic Clarence Day Sr. in Life With Father (1947), which earned him his third Academy Award nomination (the others were for The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey). After playing Doc in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts, he retired to his lavish, air-conditioned home in Palm Springs, insisting that he'd return to films if the right role came along but he turned down all offers. Married three times, Powell's second wife was actress Carole Lombard, with whom he remained good friends after the divorce, and co-starred with in My Man Godfrey (1936); his third marriage to MGM starlet Diana Lewis was a happy union that lasted from 1940 until Powell's death in 1984. It has been said, however, that the great love of William Powell's life was actress Jean Harlow, to whom he was engaged at the time of her premature death in 1936.

Myrna Loy (Actor) .. Nora Charles

Born: August 02, 1905
Died: December 14, 1993
Birthplace: Radersburg, Montana, United States

Trivia: During the late 1930s, when Clark Gable was named the King of Hollywood, Myrna Loy was elected the Queen. The legendary actress, who started her career as a dancer, moved into silent films and was typecast for a few years as exotic women. Her film titles from those early years include Arrowsmith (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and Manhattan Melodrama (1934), the film that gangster John Dillinger just had to see the night he was killed. Starting in 1934, with The Thin Man, opposite William Powell, she became Hollywood's ideal wife: bright, witty, humorous. She and Powell were often teamed throughout the '30s and '40s, and many of the characters she played were strong, independent, adventurous women. In addition to The Thin Man series, Loy's best appearances included The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Libeled Lady (1936), Wife vs. Secretary (1936), Test Pilot (1938), and Too Hot to Handle (1938). She took a break from filmmaking during WWII to work with the Red Cross, and in her later years she devoted as much time to politics as to acting (among her accomplishments, Loy became the first film star to work with the United Nations). She stands out in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and its sequel Belles on Their Toes (1952). She received an honorary Oscar in 1991, two years before her death.

Lucile Watson (Actor) .. Mrs. Charles

Born: May 27, 1879
Died: June 24, 1962

Trivia: Canadian-born, convent-educated Lucille Watson studied acting in the waning years of the 19th century at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. On the Broadway stage from 1900, Watson scored her first big hit in the 1902 production The Girl with Green Eyes. She made her first film in 1916, but for the most part avoided Hollywood until after the death of her husband, playwright Louis Shipman, in 1934. Frequently cast as the mother, grandmother or maiden aunt of the hero/heroine, the formidable Ms. Watson was seen in such roles as Louisa Bradley in The Razor's Edge (1946) and Aunt March in the 1949 version of Little Women. In 1943, Lucille Watson earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of blinkered Washington D.C. matriarch Fanny Fannelly in Watch on the Rhine.

Gloria De Haven (Actor) .. Laurabelle Ronson

Born: July 23, 1925
Died: July 30, 2016

Trivia: Gloria DeHaven was the daughter of the popular "polite comedy" stage-and-film team of Mr. and Mrs. Carter DeHaven. DeHaven made her screen debut as one of Paulette Goddard's younger sisters in Charles Chaplin's Modern Times, on which her father was assistant director. In her teen years, DeHaven secured work as a band vocalist, which led to singing parts in such film musicals as Best Foot Forward (1943), Step Lively (1944) and Summer Holiday (1948). Under contract to MGM from 1940 to 1950, the vivacious and talented DeHaven was the studio's all-purpose ingenue, acting opposite everyone from William Powell to Red Skelton. She later starred in a series of Technicolor musicals at 20th Century-Fox. When musicals fell out of public favor, DeHaven's film career waned and she turned her energies to performing in nightclubs, summer-stock and on the TV-guest-star circuit. During the 1970s and 1980s, she made cameo appearances in a few films; later she was also seen on a semi-regular basis on the TV series Ryan's Hope, Nakia and Murder She Wrote. In 1997, DeHaven returned to feature films with a co-starring role opposite Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and Dyan Cannon in Martha Coolidge's Out to Sea. She died in 2016, at age 91.

Anne Revere (Actor) .. Crazy Mary

Born: June 25, 1903
Died: December 18, 1990

Trivia: Anne Revere trained as an actress at the American Laboratory Theater, then did some work in stock. In 1931 she debuted on Broadway; during the '30s she appeared in one film, the screen version of a play in which she had appeared, Double Door (1934). In 1940 she moved to Hollywood and for a decade she appeared as a character actress in many major films; she was nominated three times for Oscars, and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in National Velvet (1945). In 1951 she fell victim to the McCarthy-Era witch trials; accused of being a Communist, she plead the Fifth and was blacklisted. She went years without work, then returned to Broadway in 1958 and won a Tony for her work in Toys in the Attic in 1960; she did more stage work and had regular roles on two TV soap operas. In the '70s she returned to the screen in three films. She was married to stage director Samuel Roser.

Harry Davenport (Actor) .. Dr. Charles

Born: January 19, 1866
Died: August 09, 1949

Trivia: Harry Davenport was descended from a long and illustrious line of stage actors who could trace their heritage to famed 18th-century Irish thespian Jack Johnson. Davenport made his own stage bow at the age of five, racking up a list of theatrical credits that eventually would fill two pages of Equity magazine. He started his film career at the age of 48, co-starring with Rose Tapley as "Mr. and Mrs. Jarr" in a series of silent comedy shorts. He also directed several silent features in the pre-World War I era. Most of his film activity was in the sound era, with such rich characterizations as Dr. Mead in Gone With the Wind (1939) and Louis XI in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) to his credit. He also essayed a few leading film roles, notably as a lovable hermit in the 1946 PRC programmer The Enchanted Forest. At the time of his final screen performance in Frank Capra's Riding High (1950), much was made in the press of the fact that this film represented Davenport's seventy-eighth year in show business. Married twice, Harry Davenport was the father of actors Arthur Rankin and Dorothy Davenport.

Helen Vinson (Actor) .. Helena Draque

Born: September 17, 1907

Trivia: The daughter of a Texas oil executive, trim blonde actress Helen Vinson had a respectable Broadway career behind her when she made her first film, Jewel Robbery, in 1932. Seldom a leading lady, Vinson carved her cinematic niche in bewitching other-woman roles. She had the gift of conveying truculence and connivance by merely batting an eyelash or murmuring a sweet nothing. From 1935 to 1936, Vinson made films in London, the home of her then-husband, tennis star Fred Perry. Helen Vinson retired from films after her supporting role in The Thin Man Goes Home (1945).

Lloyd Corrigan (Actor) .. Bruce Clayworth

Born: October 16, 1900
Died: November 05, 1969

Trivia: The son of American actress Lillian Elliott, Lloyd Corrigan began working in films as a bit actor in the silent era. But Corrigan's heart was in writing and directing during his formative professional years. He was among Raymond Griffith's writing staff for the Civil War comedy Hands Up (1926), and later penned several of Bebe Daniels' Paramount vehicles. Corrigan worked on the scripts of all three of Paramount's "Fu Manchu" films (1929-30) starring Warner Oland; he also directed the last of the series, Daughter of the Dragon (1930). In contrast to his later light-hearted acting roles, Corrigan's tastes ran to mystery and melodrama in most of his directing assignments, as witness Murder on a Honeymoon (1935) and Night Key (1937). In 1938, Corrigan abandoned directing to concentrate on acting. A porcine little man with an open-faced, wide-eyed expression, Corrigan specialized in likable businessmen and befuddled millionaires (especially in Columbia's Boston Blackie series). This quality was often as not used to lead the audience astray in such films as Maisie Gets Her Man (1942) and The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), in which the bumbling, seemingly harmless Corrigan would turn out to be a master criminal or murderer. Lloyd Corrigan continued acting in films until the mid '60s; he also was a prolific TV performer, playing continuing roles in the TV sitcoms Happy (1960) and Hank (1965), and showing up on a semi-regular basis as Ned Buntline on the long-running western Wyatt Earp (1955-61).

Donald Meek (Actor) .. Willie Crump

Born: July 14, 1880
Died: November 18, 1946

Trivia: For nearly two decades in Hollywood, Scottish-born actor Donald Meek lived up to his name by portraying a series of tremulous, shaky-voiced sycophants and milquetoasts -- though he was equally effective (if not more so) as nail-hard businessmen, autocratic schoolmasters, stern judges, compassionate doctors, small-town Babbitts, and at least one Nazi spy! An actor since the age of eight, Meek joined an acrobatic troupe, which brought him to America in his teens. At 18 Meek joined the American military and was sent to fight in the Spanish-American War. He contracted yellow fever, which caused him to lose his hair -- and in so doing, secured his future as a character actor. Meek made his film bow in 1928; in the early talkie era, he starred with John Hamilton in a series of New York-filmed short subjects based on the works of mystery writer S. S. Van Dyne. Relocating to Hollywood in 1933, Meek immediately found steady work in supporting roles. So popular did Meek become within the next five years that director Frank Capra, who'd never worked with the actor before, insisted that the gratuitous role of Mr. Poppins be specially written for Meek in the film version of You Can't Take It With You (1938) (oddly, this first association with Capra would be the last). Meek died in 1946, while working in director William Wellman's Magic Town; his completed footage remained in the film, though he was certainly conspicuous by his absence during most of the proceedings.

Edward Brophy (Actor) .. Brogam

Born: February 27, 1895

Leon Ames (Actor) .. Edgar Draque

Born: January 20, 1903
Died: October 12, 1993

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

Paul Langton (Actor) .. Tom Clayworth

Born: April 17, 1913
Died: April 15, 1980

Trivia: Making his movie bow in 1941, Paul Langton became a contract player at MGM, frequently appearing in war films. During the 1950s, Langton was seen in character parts like publicist Buddy Bliss in Big Knife (1955). He often showed up in horror films, notably The Snow Creature (1954), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957; as the hero's brother), It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958) and The Cosmic Man (1959). Paul Langton achieved TV stardom in the role of Leslie Harrington on the prime time serial Peyton Place (1964-68).

Donald MacBride (Actor) .. Chief MacGregory

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: June 21, 1957

Trivia: Vaudeville, stock and Broadway actor Donald MacBride made his Hollywood debut in the 1938 Marx Brothers farce Room Service, reprising his stage role as explosive hotel manager Wagner ("Jumping Butterballs!!!") His previous film appearances had been lensed in his native New York, first at the Vitagraph studios in Flatbush, where he showed up in the Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew comedies of the 1910s. During the early talkie years, MacBride showed up in several one- and two-reelers, providing support to such Manhattan-based talent as Burns & Allen, Bob Hope and Shemp Howard. After Room Service, the bulldog-visaged MacBride was prominently cast in picture after picture, usually as a flustered detective. He was teamed with Alan Mowbray in a brace of 1940 RKO "B"s about a pair of shoestring theatrical producers, and was featured in four of Abbott and Costello's comedies. Among the actor's rare noncomic roles were the dying gangster boss in High Sierra (1941) and the dour insurance executive in The Killers (1946). MacBride's television work includes a season as dizzy Marie Wilson's long-suffering employer on the early-1950s TV sitcom My Friend Irma. Donald MacBride's last film role was as Tom Ewell's backslapping boss in the 1955 Billy Wilder comedy The Seven-Year Itch.

Minor Watson (Actor) .. Sam Ronson

Born: December 22, 1889
Died: July 28, 1965

Trivia: Courtly character actor Minor Watson made his stage debut in Brooklyn in 1911. After 11 years of stock experience, Watson made his Broadway bow in Why Men Leave Home. By the end of the 1920s he was a major stage star, appearing in vehicles specially written for him. Recalling his entree into films in 1931, Watson was fond of saying, "I'm a stage actor by heart and by profession. I was a movie star by necessity and a desire to eat." Though never a true "movie star" per se, he remained gainfully employed into the 1950s in choice character roles. Often called upon to play show-biz impresarios, he essayed such roles as E.F. Albee in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and John Ringling North in Trapeze (1956). One of Minor Watson's largest and most well-rounded screen assignments was the part of cagey Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey in 1950's The Jackie Robinson Story.

Anita Sharp-Bolster (Actor) .. Hilda

Born: August 28, 1895

Charles Halton (Actor) .. Tatum

Born: March 16, 1876
Died: April 16, 1959

Trivia: American actor Charles Halton was forced to quit school at age 14 to help support his family. When his boss learned that young Halton was interested in the arts, he financed the boy's training at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. For the next three decades, Halton appeared in every aspect of "live" performing; in the '20s, he became a special favorite of playwright George S. Kaufman, who cast Halton in one of his most famous roles as movie mogul Herman Glogauer in Once in a Lifetime. Appearing in Dodsworth on Broadway with Walter Huston, Halton was brought to Hollywood to recreate his role in the film version. Though he'd occasionally return to the stage, Halton put down roots in Hollywood, where his rimless spectacles and snapping-turtle features enabled him to play innumerable "nemesis" roles. He could usually be seen as a grasping attorney, a rent-increasing landlord or a dictatorial office manager. While many of these characterizations were two-dimensional, Halton was capable of portraying believable human beings with the help of the right director; such a director was Ernst Lubitsch, who cast Halton as the long-suffered Polish stage manager in To Be or Not to Be (1942). Alfred Hitchcock likewise drew a flesh and blood portrayal from Halton, casting the actor as the small-town court clerk who reveals that Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard are not legally married in Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1942). Charles Halton retired from Hollywood after completing his work on Friendly Persuasion in 1956; he died three years later of hepatitis.

Morris Ankrum (Actor) .. Willoughby

Born: August 28, 1897
Died: September 02, 1964

Trivia: American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as Robert Preston and Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were Rocketship X-M (1950), Red Planet Mars (1952), Flight to Mars (1952), Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director Joe Dante's 1993 comedy Matinee: the military officer played by Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film Mant is named General Ankrum.

Nora Cecil (Actor) .. Miss Peavy

Born: September 26, 1878
Died: May 01, 1954

Trivia: Nora Cecil's earliest known screen credit was 1918's Prunella. Chances are Cecil played then what she'd play in most of her talkie efforts: the tight-lipped, sternly reproving old biddy. She made a good living essaying dozens of battle-ax mothers-in-law, welfare workers, landladies, schoolmistresses and maiden aunts. One of her largest parts was boarding-house keeper Mrs. Wendelschaffer in W.C. Fields' The Old Fashioned Way (1934). Nora Cecil also served as an excellent foil for screen comedians as varied as Laurel and Hardy (1932's Pack Up Your Troubles) and Will Rogers (1933's Dr. Bull).

Wally Cassell (Actor) .. Bill Burns

Born: March 03, 1912

Trivia: In films from 1943, pugnacious American character actor Wally Cassell was afforded star billing for the first time in The Story of GI Joe (1945). As Private Dondaro, Cassell spent half of his time searching for his ethnic roots in war-torn Italy, and the other half seeking out wine, women and more wine. His other war-related filmic efforts included Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Flying Leathernecks (1951). He later appeared in westerns, then worked steadily during the late-1950s gangster-movie cycle, playing such raffish characters as Cherry Nose in I Mobster (1959). Wally Cassell was married to musical performer Marcy Maguire.

Arthur Hohl (Actor) .. Charlie

Born: May 21, 1889
Died: March 10, 1964

Trivia: Gaunt stage actor Arthur Hohl began appearing in films in 1924. With his haunting eyes and demeanor of false servility, Hohl oiled his way through many a villainous or mildly larcenous role. When he showed up as Brutus in DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), there was no question that audience sympathy would automatically be directed to Julius Caesar (Warren William). Hohl found himself a semi-regular in Hollywood's Sherlock Holmes films, beginning with his portrayal of Moriarty's flunkey Alfie Bassick in 20th Century-Fox's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) and concluding with his performance as primary murder suspect Emile Journet in Universal's The Scarlet Claw (1944). Arthur Hohl was never creepier than as the psychotic phony butler who plans to bump off the entire Bumstead family--even Baby Dumpling and Daisy the Dog!--in Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940).

Anthony Warde (Actor) .. Captain

Born: January 01, 1909
Died: January 08, 1975

Trivia: Dark, pencil-mustached American actor Anthony Warde made his film bow in 1936. Throughout his career, Warde excelled in unsavory characterizations, usually in serials and low-budget crime and Western films. He played Killer Kane in the 1939 chapter play Buck Rogers, and also showed up in such Republic serials as The Masked Marvel (1943), The Purple Monster Strikes (1945), and The Black Widow (1947). Active until 1964, Anthony Warde made a number of TV appearances in the 1950s, including a brief turn as a counterfeiter in an episode of Amos 'N' Andy.

Bill Smith (Actor) .. Skating Act

Lucille Browne (Actor) .. Skating Act

Born: March 18, 1907
Died: May 10, 1976

Trivia: The sound era's first true serial queen, blond, blue-eyed Lucille Browne was appearing on-stage with aging matinee idol Richard Bennett in Jarnigan when signed to a contract with Fox in 1930. She was immediately teamed with George O'Brien for Last of the Duanes (1930), a Zane Grey adventure, and although Fox singularly failed to realize her potential, the die was cast and she would forever be identified with action and outdoor films. Browne's first in a total of six serials was Universal's Danger Island (1931), with Battling With Buffalo Bill (1931) and The Airmail Mystery (1932) following in short order. Her leading man in the latter was general purpose actor James Flavin, whom she would marry soon after, a union that lasted her lifetime. Mascot, the premium independent serial producer, hired her for Last of the Mohicans (1932) and Mystery Squadron (1933). The latter, starring Bob Steele and scores of airplanes, was probably Browne's best-remembered serial. The Law of the Wild (1934), also from Mascot, followed, and Browne was Gene Autry's leading lady in his signature opus, Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935). There were additional Westerns with Johnny Mack Brown and Ken Maynard but by the 1940s, both Flavins were playing bit roles.

Mickey Harris (Actor) .. Contortionist

Rex Evans (Actor) .. Fat Man

Born: April 13, 1903
Died: April 03, 1969

Trivia: Portly British character actor Rex Evans made a name for himself in the mid-1920s as a comic performer in London cabarets and music halls. Evans came to Broadway the following decade, where he would appear opposite the likes of Cornelia Otis Skinner (in Lady Windemere's Fan) and Carol Channing (in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). Concurrent with his New York stage career, he found time to appear in Hollywood films, where at first he was cast as corpulent "sugar daddies" and millionaires. After making a strong impression as the family butler in The Philadelphia Story (1940), he found himself typecast as dignified menservants. Occasionally he broke this stereotype by adopting a handlebar mustache and playing such unsavory roles as the grumpy innkeeper in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) and the principal villain in the 1946 "Sherlock Holmes" opus Pursuit to Algiers. After his retirement from films in the early 1960s, Rex Evans devoted his energies to the thriving art gallery that he'd been running for years on Hollywood's La Cienega Boulevard.

Harry Hayden (Actor) .. Conductor

Born: November 08, 1882
Died: July 24, 1955

Trivia: Slight, grey-templed, bespectacled actor Harry Hayden was cast to best advantage as small-town store proprietors, city attorneys and minor bureaucrats. Dividing his time between stage and screen work from 1936, Hayden became one of the busiest members of Central Casting, appearing in everything from A-pictures like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) to the RKO 2-reelers of Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy. Among his better-known unbilled assignments are horn factory owner Mr. Sharp (his partner is Mr. Pierce) in Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea (1940) and Farley Granger's harrumphing boss who announces brusquely that there'll be no Christmas bonus in O. Henry's Full House (1951). Hayden's final flurry of activity was in the role of next-door-neighbor Harry on the 1954-55 season of TV's The Stu Erwin Show (aka The Trouble with Father), in which he was afforded the most screen time he'd had in years -- though he remains uncredited in the syndicated prints of this popular series. From the mid '30s until his death in 1955, Harry Hayden and his actress wife Lela Bliss ran Beverly Hills' Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theatre, where several Hollywood aspirants were given an opportunity to learn their craft before live audiences; among the alumni of the Bliss-Hayden were Jon Hall, Veronica Lake, Doris Day, Craig Stevens, Debbie Reynolds, and Marilyn Monroe.

Connie Gilchrist (Actor) .. Woman With Baby

Born: February 06, 1901
Died: January 01, 1985

Trivia: The daughter of actress Martha Daniels, Connie Gilchrist was herself on stage from the age of 16, touring both Europe and the U.S. Her theatrical credits include such long-runners as Mulatto and Ladies and Gentlemen, the latter featuring a contemporary of Gilchrist's named Helen Hayes. While acting in the pre-Broadway tour of Ladies and Gentlemen in 1939, Gilchrist was signed to a ten-year contract at MGM, where amidst the studio's patented gloss and glitter, the actress' brash, down-to-earth characterizations brought a welcome touch of urban reality. Usually cast as Irish maids, tenement housewives and worldly madams (though seldom designated as such), Gilchrist was given a rare chance to show off her musical talents in Presenting Lily Mars, where she sang a duet with Judy Garland. After her MGM tenure, Gilchrist free-lanced in such films as Houdini (1953), Auntie Mame (1958) (as governess Nora Muldoon) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). Devoted TV fans will recall Connie Gilchrist as the bawdy pubkeeper Purity on the 1950s Australian-filmed adventure series Long John Silver.

Robert Emmett O'Connor (Actor) .. Baggage Man

Born: March 18, 1885

Dick Botiller (Actor) .. Big Man's Companion

Born: October 12, 1896
Died: March 24, 1953

Trivia: A native Californian, dark-haired, tough-looking Dick Botiller became a fixture in B-Westerns and serials from 1933-1945, playing scores of thugs, "half-breeds," soldiers, henchmen, and assorted Native Americans, his appearances often going unbilled. Film historian Les Adams has clocked Botiller's usually nefarious presence at a total of 82 Westerns and 11 serials.

John Wengraf (Actor) .. Big Man

Born: January 01, 1896
Died: May 04, 1974

Trivia: The son of a Viennese drama critic, John Wengraf enjoyed an extensive -- and expensive -- theatrical training. Wengraf made his stage debut in repertory in 1920, then graduated to the Vienna Volkstheater. He flourished as an actor and director in Berlin until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Moving to England, he appeared in a few films there, and also participated in some of the first BBC live-television presentations. In 1941, he made his Broadway bow, and in 1942 launched his Hollywood career. An imposing-looking fellow who somewhat resembled British actor Leo G. Carroll, Wengraf was frequently cast as erudite Nazi officials; after the war, he specialized in portraying mittel-European doctors and psychiatrists. From the 1950s until his retirement in 1963, John Wengraf made several TV appearances, including two guest-star gigs on The Untouchables.

Ralph Brooks (Actor) .. Tom Burton

Born: September 23, 1915

Jane Green (Actor) .. Housekeeper

Irving Bacon (Actor) .. Tom the Proprietor

Born: September 06, 1893
Died: February 05, 1965

Trivia: Irving Bacon entered films at the Keystone Studios in 1913, where his athletic prowess and Ichabod Crane-like features came in handy for the Keystone brand of broad slapstick. He appeared in over 200 films during the silent and sound era, often playing mailmen, soda jerks and rustics. In The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) it is Irving, as a flustered jury foreman, who delivers the film's punchline. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Irving played the recurring role of Mr. Crumb in Columbia's Blondie series; he's the poor postman who is forever being knocked down by the late-for-work Dagwood Bumstead, each collision accompanied by a cascade of mail flying through the air. Irving Bacon kept his hand in throughout the 1950s, appearing in a sizeable number of TV situation comedies.

Virginia Sale (Actor) .. Tom's Wife

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: August 23, 1992

Trivia: Willowy blonde actress Virginia Sale was seen on stage and screen from the mid-1920s. Sale was usually cast as either an efficient secretary or a well-coiffed socialite, appearing in such 1930s films as Her Majesty Love (1931), Man With Two Faces (1934) and Topper. In all, she was in some 200 films, not to mention her 1000-plus live appearances in her own one-woman show. For fifteen years, Ms. Sale offered this tour-de-force (a combination lecture on theatrical arts and demonstration of the actress' versatility) to schools, nightclubs and legitimate theatres, retiring only when the infirmities of age caught up with her in her 80s. Equally active on television, Sale showed up on innumerable anthologies and sitcoms; in 1964, she was the first actress to portray busybody Selma Plout on the long-running Petticoat Junction. The sister of vaudeville headliner Chic Sale, Virginia Sale was long married to Broadway actor Sam Wren, with whom she co-starred in the pioneering TV domestic comedy Wren's Nest (1949).

Garry Owen (Actor) .. Pool Player

Born: February 18, 1902
Died: June 01, 1951

Trivia: The son of an actress, Garry Owen first appeared on-stage with his mother in vaudeville. Owen went on to perform in such Broadway productions as Square Crooks and Miss Manhattan. In films from 1933, Owen was occasionally seen in such sizeable roles as private-eye Paul Drake in the 1936 Perry Mason movie Case of the Black Cat. For the most part, however, he played character bits, most memorably in the films of Frank Capra; in Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), for example, he plays the monumentally impatient taxi driver who closes the picture with the exclamation, "I'm not a cab driver, I'm a coffee pot!" In addition to his feature-film work, Garry Owen showed up in scores of short subjects for Hal Roach and MGM.

Saul Gorss (Actor) .. Bartender

Born: January 01, 1907
Died: September 10, 1966

Trivia: Also billed as Saul Gorse and Sol Gorss, this busy character actor/stunt man entered films in 1933. Gorss spent the better part of his career at Warner Bros., playing muscular utility roles and doubling for the studio's male stars. He forsook Hollywood for war service in 1943, then returned to films, once more cast in minor roles in westerns and crime pictures. One of Saul Gorss' most distinguished credits of the 1950s was The Thing, in which he was one of the stunt performers and coordinators.

Bert May (Actor) .. Sailor

Chester Clute (Actor) .. Drunk

Born: January 01, 1891
Died: April 05, 1956

Trivia: For two decades, the diminutive American actor ChesterClute played a seemingly endless series of harassed clerks, testy druggists, milquetoast husbands, easily distracted laboratory assistants and dishevelled streetcar passengers. A New York-based stage actor, Clute began his movie career at the Astoria studios in Long Island, appearing in several early-talkie short subjects. He moved to the West Coast in the mid '30s, remaining there until his final film appearance in Colorado Territory (1952). While Chester Clute seldom had more than two or three lines of dialogue in feature films, he continued throughout his career to be well-served in short subjects, most notably as Vera Vague's wimpish suitor in the 1947 Columbia 2-reeler Cupid Goes Nuts.

Clarence Muse (Actor) .. Porter

Born: October 07, 1889
Died: October 13, 1979

Trivia: Black actor of Hollywood films, onscreen from 1929. He graduated from law school, but in his early '30s he abandoned law to work as an actor in New York with the Lincoln Players; he co-founded his next acting company, the Lafayette Players. He was offered a role in the all-black film musical Hearts in Dixie (1929), and accepted after the studio signed him for $1250 a week. He made films for almost five decades, and much of the time he was busy almost constantly; he often played Uncle Tom types, but also gave many performances that were invested with considerable dignity and intelligence. In 1973 he was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.

Tom Fadden (Actor) .. Train Passenger

Born: January 01, 1895
Died: April 14, 1980

Trivia: Lanky character actor Tom Fadden first trod the boards when he joined an Omaha stock company in 1915. Fadden went on to tour in top vaudeville with his actress wife Genevieve. From 1932 to 1939, he was seen on Broadway in such productions as Nocturne and Our Town. He made his first film in 1939. Fadden's better-known screen roles include the tollhouse keeper in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)--which led to choice appearances in subsequent Frank Capra productions--and "possessed" townman Ira in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). In 1958, he was seen on a weekly basis as Silas Perry on TV's Cimarron City. Tom Fadden's cinematic swan song was 1977's Empire of the Ants.

Joseph J. Greene (Actor) .. Train Passenger

Born: November 17, 1894
Died: February 09, 1979

Trivia: A rotund, jolly-looking character actor long under contract to 20th Century Fox, Joseph J. Greene played Chief Justice White in that studio's monumental screen biography Wilson (1944), the sheriff in the Hopalong Cassidy Western The Devil's Playground (1946), and Santa Claus in The Bishop's Wife (1947). Greene continued to play bit parts through the 1950s, when he also appeared on such television shows as Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock and Wanted Dead or Alive.

Sarah Edwards (Actor) .. Train Passenger

Born: January 01, 1892
Died: January 07, 1955

Trivia: After a tentative movie debut in the New York-filmed 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl, stately character actress Sarah Edwards settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1935. Another of those performers who evidently jumped directly from birth to old age, Edwards portrayed many a kindly grandmother, imperious dowager, hardy pioneer wife, ill-tempered teacher and strict governess. She played peripheral roles in films like The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Shadow of the Doubt (1942), and enjoyed larger assignments in films like Hal Roach's Dudes are Pretty People (1942, as "The Colonel") and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Sarah Edwards is not related to the 1980s TV personality of the same name.

Frank Jaquet (Actor) .. Train Passenger

Born: March 16, 1885
Died: May 11, 1958

Trivia: Actor Frank Jaquet's screen career extended from 1934 to the mid-1950s. Seldom playing a major role, Jaquet essayed dozens of bit parts as senators, judges, doctors, and politicians. As a pompous small-town mayor, he served as a "human punch line" in the 1938 "Our Gang" comedy Party Fever. Among his larger assignments was the part of murder suspect Paul Hawlin in the 1944 Charlie Chan entry Black Magic. One of Frank Jaquet's last roles was the kindly butcher in the "Gift of the Magi" sequence in O. Henry's Full House (1952).

Oliver Blake (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: April 04, 1905
Died: February 12, 1992

Trivia: Lanky, long-nosed supporting actor Oliver Blake acted on stage under his given name of Oliver Prickett. From the mid-1920s onward, Blake was a fixture at the Pasadena Playhouse, where his brother Charles was managing director and his sister Maudie was a resident character actress. At the Playhouse, he starred in such productions as Charley's Aunt and also taught classes for first-year students. He entered films in 1941, and for his first few years before the camera was confined to bit roles like the Blue Parrot waiter in Casablanca (1942). One of his more visible screen assignments was as dour-faced Indian neighbor Geoduck in Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle series. An apparent favorite of comedian Bob Hope, Blake showed up in a variety of roles in several Hope farces, notably as the world's most emaciated Santa Claus in The Seven Little Foys (1955). On TV, Oliver Blake played the recurring role of Carl Dorf in the 1956 sitcom The Brothers.

Don Wilson (Actor) .. Masseur

Born: January 01, 1900
Died: January 01, 1982

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1934; concurrently, for 33 years he was comedian Jack Benny's announcer and straight man on radio and TV.

Etta McDaniel (Actor) .. Ronson's Maid

Born: December 01, 1890
Died: January 13, 1946

Trivia: Actress Etta McDaniel made her stage debut along with her seven siblings as a member of H. M. Johnson's Mighty Modern Minstrels, a Denver-based musical troupe. In the late 1920s, McDaniel and her older brother Sam headed to Hollywood, where both found steady work in bit parts. In keeping with Hollywood's racial attitudes of the 1930s and 1940s, she was confined to the stereotypical roles usually assigned black actresses of the era: housekeepers, maids, mammies and African natives. Unlike her younger sister Hattie McDaniel, who eventually attained co-star billing and an Academy Award (for Gone with the Wind), Etta McDaniel spent her entire Hollywood career in minor roles.

Tom Dugan (Actor) .. Slugs

Born: January 01, 1884

Edward Gargan (Actor) .. Mickey

Born: July 17, 1902

Tom Dillon (Actor) .. Officer

Born: January 01, 1919
Died: March 14, 2005

Bill Hunter (Actor) .. Officer

Marjorie Wood (Actor) .. Montage Shot Mother

Born: January 01, 1881
Died: January 01, 1955

Catherine McLeod (Actor) .. Montage Shot Daughter

Born: July 02, 1921
Died: May 11, 1997

Trivia: Actress Catherine McLeod made her film bow with an unbilled bit in MGM's The Thin Man Goes Home (1944). Within a year, she was signed at Republic Pictures, where she became a prolific and briefly popular leading lady. Her best-known role at Republic was as the concert-pianist heroine of the lavish Trucolor romance I've Always Loved You (1946). McLeod worked fitfully in films throughout the 1950s and 1960s; her best showing in later years was in a recurring role on the TV daytime drama Days of Our Lives. As lovely and graceful as ever, Catherine McLeod appeared as one of the interviewees on the 1990 2-hour TV documentary The Republic Pictures Story. McLeod passed away on May 11, 1997 after contracting pneumonia.

Clancy Cooper (Actor) .. Butcher

Born: July 23, 1906
Died: June 14, 1975

Trivia: A distinguished member of Broadway's famed Group Theater, with whom he appeared in Casey Jones (1938) and Night Music (1940), Clancy Cooper entered films with Warner Bros. in 1941. But despite his distinctive theater pedigree, Cooper's busy screen career proved middling at best and he mainly played bit roles. A notable exception came in the 1944 serial Haunted Harbor, as one of hero Kane Richmond's two sidekicks. A veteran of more than 100 feature films, the veteran actor went on to also embrace television, appearing in over 200 episodes in shows such as The Lone Ranger, Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Gunsmoke, Twilight Zone, Maverick, Dr. Kildare, and The Wild Wild West. Married to novelist Elizabeth Cooper, Clancy Cooper died of a heart attack while driving in Hollywood.

Joe Yule (Actor) .. Barber

Born: January 01, 1888
Died: January 01, 1950

Trivia: Scottish actor Joe Yule had a long career as a burlesque and vaudeville performer before joining MGM in the late '30s to play character roles. He was often loaned out to other studios. Eventually Yule ended up at Monogram studios playing the cartoon character Jiggs in the Jiggs and Maggie series of B-movies. Yule's most enduring contribution to cinema may be that he fathered beloved actor Mickey Rooney.

Robert E. Homans (Actor) .. Railroad Clerk

Born: January 01, 1875
Died: July 28, 1947

Trivia: Actor Robert Emmett Homans seemingly had the map of Ireland stamped on his craggy face. As a result, Homans spent the better part of his film career playing law enforcement officers of all varieties, from humble patrolmen to detective chiefs. After a lengthy stage career, Homans entered films in 1923. A break from his usual microscopic film assignments occured in Public Enemy (1931), where Homans is given an opportunity to deliver reams of exposition (with a pronounced brogue) during a funeral sequence. And in the 1942 Universal horror programmer Night Monster, Robert Emmett Homans is alotted a sizeable role as the ulcerated detective investigating the supernatural goings-on at the home of seemingly helpless invalid Ralph Morgan.

Lee Phelps (Actor) .. Cop

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: March 19, 1953

Trivia: Lee Phelps was a longtime resident of Culver City, California, the home of several film studios, including MGM and Hal Roach. Whenever the call went out for street extras, Phelps was always available; his Irish face and shiny pate can be easily spotted in such silent 2-reelers as Laurel and Hardy's Putting Pants on Phillip. Phelps was active in films from 1921 through 1953, often in anonymous bit or atmosphere parts, usually playing a cop or a delivery man. Lee Phelps has found his way into several TV movie-compilation specials thanks to his participation in two famous films of the early '30s: Phelps played the cowering speakeasy owner slapped around by Jimmy Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931), and also portrayed the waterfront waiter to whom Greta Garbo delivers her first talking-picture line ("Gif me a viskey, baby...etc.") in Anna Christie (1930).

Helen Eby-Rock (Actor) .. Tart

Jean Acker (Actor) .. Tart

Born: January 01, 1893
Died: January 01, 1978

Trivia: American actress Jean Acker acquired more notoriety for being the estranged wife of Rudolph Valentino than she did as a leading actress. According to Tinseltown legend, she married him in 1919 while he was still an unknown. She left him on their wedding night and the marriage was apparently never consummated. Still Valentino was rumored to have begged for Acker to return. She never did and in 1921 filed for a legal separation. In 1924, Acker had the gall to use the name Mrs. Rudolph Valentino as a screen credit.

Mike Mazurki (Actor) .. Man

Born: December 25, 1907
Died: December 09, 1990

Trivia: Though typecast as a dull-witted brute, Austrian-born Mike Mazurki was the holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree from Manhattan College. During the 1930s, he was a professional football and basketball player, as well as a heavyweight wrestler. His clock-stopping facial features enabled Mazurki to pick up bit and supporting roles in such films as The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Dr.Renault's Secret (1943). Larger parts came his way after his indelible portrayal of psychotic brute Moose Malloy in 1944's Murder My Sweet. His trademarked slurred speech was reportedly the result of an injury to his Adam's apple, incurred during his wrestling days. While villainy was his bread and butter, Mazurki enjoyed working with comedians like Jerry Lewis and Lou Costello; he was particularly fond of the latter because the diminutive Costello treated him with dignity and respect, defending big Mike against people who treated the hulking actor like a big dumb lug. Mazurki's many TV appearances included a regular role on the short-lived 1971 sitcom The Chicago Teddy Bears. In 1976, Mike Mazurki was effectively cast as a kindly trapper in the family-oriented "four-waller" Challenge to Be Free, which ended up a cash cow for the veteran actor.

Mitchell Lewis (Actor) .. Man

Born: June 26, 1880
Died: August 24, 1956

Trivia: Husky actor Mitchell Lewis attended Annapolis and Syracus University before making his stage debut in 1902. Lewis went on tour with such theatrical heavyweights as William Collier, Dustin Farnum and Alla Nazimova. He made his film bow in 1914 at the old Thanhouser Company. Specializing in ethnic roles, Lewis spent both the silent and talkie era playing menacing gypsies (The Cuckoos, The Bohemina Girl), Arab potentates (he was horse-loving Sheik Iderim in the 1926 version of Ben-Hur), East Indian warriors and Native American chiefs. He even donned blackface to portray "Tambo" in Al Jolson's Big Boy (1930). In 1937, Lewis was signed to an MGM lifetime contract, which assured him steady if not always stellar work for the next eighteen years. One of his many MGM bit-part assignments was the green-skinned Winkie Captain ("You've killed her! She's dead! Long live Dorothy!") in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Active throughout his career in charitable pursuits, Mitchell Lewis served on the original board of the Motion Picture Relief Fund.

Ray Teal (Actor) .. Man

Born: January 12, 1902
Died: April 02, 1976
Birthplace: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Trivia: Possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, American actor Ray Teal spent much of his film career heading lynch mobs, recruiting for hate organizations and decimating Indians. Naturally, anyone this nasty in films would have to conversely be a pleasant, affable fellow in real life, and so it was with Teal. Working his way through college as a saxophone player, Teal became a bandleader upon graduation, remaining in the musical world until 1936. In 1938, Teal was hired to act in the low-budget Western Jamboree, and though he played a variety of bit parts as cops, taxi drivers and mashers, he seemed more at home in Westerns. Teal found it hard to shake his bigoted badman image even in A-pictures; as one of the American jurists in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he is the only member of Spencer Tracy's staff that feels that sympathy should be afforded Nazi war criminals -- and the only one on the staff who openly dislikes American liberals. A more benign role came Teal's way on the '60s TV series Bonanza, where he played the sometimes ineffectual but basically decent Sheriff Coffee. Ray Teal retired from films shortly after going through his standard redneck paces in The Liberation of LB Jones (1970).

Edward S. Brophy (Actor) .. Brogan

Born: March 27, 1895
Died: May 30, 1960

Trivia: Born in New York City and educated at the University of Virginia, comic actor Edward Brophy entered films as a small part player in 1919. After a few years, he opted for the more financially secure production end of the business, though he never abandoned acting altogether. While working as property master for the Buster Keaton unit at MGM, Brophy was lured before the cameras for a memorable sequence in The Cameraman (1928) in which he and Buster both try to undress in a tiny wardrobe closet. Keaton saw to it that Brophy was prominently cast in two of the famed comedian's talking pictures, and by 1934 Brophy was once again acting full-time. Using his popping eyes, high pitched voiced and balding head to his best advantage, Brophy scored in role after role as funny gangsters and dyspeptic fight managers (he was less effective in such serious parts as the crazed killer in the 1935 horror film Mad Love). In 1940, Brophy entered the realm of screen immortality as the voice of Timothy Mouse in Walt Disney's feature-length cartoon Dumbo (1940). Curtailing his activities in the 1950s, he did his last work for director John Ford. Brophy died during production of Ford's Two Rode Together (1961); according to some sources, the actor's few completed scenes remain in the final release version of that popular western.

Anita Bolster (Actor) .. Hilda

Born: August 29, 1895
Died: June 01, 1985

Trivia: A member of Ireland's famed Abbey Theatre, sharp-featured character actress Anita Bolster (sometimes billed Anita Sharp-Bolster) had enjoyed a long career on the British stage and screen before coming to America in 1938. She received rave reviews on Broadway in Lady in Waiting, with which she also toured until making her American screen debut in 1941. Bolster became one of the busiest character actresses of the 1940s, usually playing prissy spinsters, gossips, and housekeepers. In the 1950s, she twice played "second witch" in television versions of Macbeth and she finished her career playing yet another housekeeper, this time in the cult daytime soap opera Dark Shadows.

Ralph Brooke (Actor) .. Peter Berton

Born: January 01, 1919
Died: January 01, 1963

William Hunter (Actor) .. Officer

Died: January 01, 1967

Robert E. O'Connor (Actor) .. Baggage Man

Born: January 01, 1885
Died: September 04, 1962

Trivia: Boasting a colorful show-biz background as a circus and vaudeville performer, Robert Emmet O'Connor entered films in 1926. Blessed with a pudgy Irish mug that could convey both jocularity and menace, O'Connor was most often cast as cops and detectives, some of them honest and lovable, some of them corrupt and pugnacious. His roles ranged from such hefty assignments as the flustered plainclothesman Henderson in Night at the Opera (1935) to such bits as the traffic cop who is confused by Jimmy Cagney's barrage of Yiddish in Taxi! (1932). One of his most famous non-cop roles was warm-hearted bootlegger Paddy Ryan in Public Enemy. During the 1940s, O'Connor was a contract player at MGM, showing up in everything from Our Gang comedies to the live-action prologue of the Tex Avery cartoon classic Who Killed Who? (1944). Robert Emmet O'Connor's last film role was Paramount studio-guard Jonesy in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Twelve years later, he died of injuries sustained in a fire.

4:30 pm - 6:15 pm, Thursday, January 1 on Turner Classic Movies ()