Miracle on 34th Street

Edmund Gwenn (Actor) .. Kris Kringle

Born: September 26, 1877
Died: September 06, 1959
Birthplace: Wandsworth, London, United Kingdom

Trivia: The son of a traveling British civil servant, Edmund Gwenn was ordered to leave his home at age 17 when he announced his intention to become an actor. Working throughout the British empire in a variety of theatrical troupes, Gwenn finally settled in London in 1902 when he was personally selected by playwright George Bernard Shaw for a role in Shaw's Man and Superman. Thanks to Shaw's sponsorship, Gwenn rapidly established himself as one of London's foremost character stars, his career interrupted only by military service during World War I. Gwenn's film career, officially launched in 1916, took a back seat to his theatrical work for most of his life; still, he was a favorite of both American and British audiences for his portrayals of blustery old men, both comic and villainous. At age 71, Gwenn was cast as Kris Kringle, a lovable old eccentric who imagined that he was Santa Claus, in the comedy classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947); his brilliant portrayal was honored with an Academy Award and transformed the veteran actor into an "overnight" movie star. Edmund Gwenn died shortly after making his final film, an oddball Mexican comedy titled The Rocket From Calabuch (1958); one of his surviving family members his cousin Cecil Kellaway, was a respected character actor in his own right.

John Payne (Actor) .. Fred Gailey

Born: May 23, 1912
Died: December 06, 1989

Trivia: The son of an opera soprana, he studied drama at Columbia and voice at Juilliard. He began his career as a singer, then did some acting in stock. He moved to Hollywood in 1935, playing leads in a number of Fox musicals by the '40s, often opposite Alice Faye or Betty Grable. Frequently appearing bare-chested, he was very popular with female fans, and for a time he was the top male pin-up. In the '50s, still muscular but no longer boyish, he switched to medium-budget Westerns and action movies. In 1957 he retired from the screen to star in the TV series The Restless Gun and appeared in only two more films. He directed one of his last films, They Ran for Their Lives (1968). He finished his career in a 1973 Broadway revival of the musical Good News, appearing opposite Alice Faye. He became wealthy with shrewd real estate investments in southern California. From 1937-43 he was married to actress Anne Shirley; their daughter is actress Julie Payne. From 1944-50 he was married to actress Gloria DeHaven.

Maureen O'Hara (Actor) .. Doris Walker

Born: August 17, 1920
Died: October 24, 2015
Birthplace: Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland

Trivia: Born in Ranelagh, Ireland, near Dublin, Maureen O'Hara was trained at the Abbey Theatre School and appeared on radio as a young girl before making her stage debut with the Abbey Players in the mid-'30s. She went to London in 1938, and made her first important screen appearance that same year in the Charles Laughton/Erich Pommer-produced drama Jamaica Inn, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She was brought to Hollywood with Laughton's help and co-starred with him in the celebrated costume drama The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which established O'Hara as a major new leading lady. Although she appeared in dramas such as How Green Was My Valley with Walter Pidgeon, The Fallen Sparrow opposite John Garfield, and This Land Is Mine with Laughton, it was in Hollywood's swashbucklers that O'Hara became most popular and familiar. Beginning with The Black Swan opposite Tyrone Power in 1942, she always seemed to be fighting (or romancing) pirates, especially once Technicolor became standard for such films. Her red hair photographed exceptionally well, and, with her extraordinary good looks, she exuded a robust sexuality that made her one of the most popular actresses of the late '40s and early '50s.O'Hara was also a good sport, willing to play scenes that demanded a lot of her physically, which directors and producers appreciated. The Spanish Main, Sinbad the Sailor, and Against All Flags (the latter starring Errol Flynn) were among her most popular action films of the '40s. During this period, the actress also starred as young Natalie Wood's beautiful, strong-willed mother in the classic holiday fantasy Miracle on 34th Street and as John Wayne's estranged wife in the John Ford cavalry drama Rio Grande. O'Hara became Wayne's most popular leading lady, most notably in Ford's The Quiet Man, but her career was interrupted during the late '50s when she sued the scandal magazine Confidential. It picked up again in 1960, when she did one of her occasional offbeat projects, the satire Our Man in Havana, based on a Graham Greene novel and starring Alec Guinness. O'Hara moved into more distinctly maternal roles during the '60s, playing the mother of Hayley Mills in Disney's popular The Parent Trap. She also starred with Wayne in the comedy Western McLintock!, and with James Stewart in the The Rare Breed, both directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Following her last film with Wayne, Big Jake, and a 1973 television adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Red Pony, O'Hara went into retirement, although returned to the screen in 1991 to play John Candy's overbearing mother in the comedy Only the Lonely, and later appeared in a handful of TV movies. In 2014, she received an Honorary Academy Award, despite having never been nominated for one previously. O'Hara died the following year, at age 95.

Natalie Wood (Actor) .. Susan Walker

Born: July 20, 1938
Died: November 29, 1981
Birthplace: San Fernando, California, United States

Trivia: Born to Russian-immigrant parents, Natalie Wood made her first film appearance at age four as an extra in Happy Land (1943). When she was promoted to supporting roles, the young Wood was well prepared for the artistic discipline expected of her: She'd been taking dancing lessons since infancy. By 1947, she earned up to a thousand dollars per week for such films as Miracle on 34th Street. She made a reasonably smooth transition to grown-up roles, most notably as James Dean's girlfriend in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Warren Beatty's steady in Splendor in the Grass (1961). She was also a regular on the 1953 sitcom Pride of the Family, playing the teenaged daughter of Paul Hartman and Fay Wray. Despite being romantically linked with several of her leading men, Wood settled down to marriage relatively early, wedding film star Robert Wagner in 1957. The union didn't last, and she and Wagner were divorced in 1962. Continuing to star in such important films as West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1963), Inside Daisy Clover (1967), and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1969), Wood always managed to bounce back from her numerous career setbacks, and in 1971, after an interim marriage to screenwriter Richard Gregson, Wood remarried Robert Wagner, this time for keeps. Opinions of her acting ability varied: Her adherents felt that she was one of Hollywood's most versatile stars, while her detractors considered her to be more fortunate than talented. The Oscar people thought enough of Wood to nominate her three times, for Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, and Love With the Proper Stranger (1963). In the midst of filming the 1981 sci-fier Brainstorm, 43-year-old Natalie Wood drowned in a yachting accident just off Catalina Island. Among her survivors was her sister, actress Lana Wood.

Porter Hall (Actor) .. Mr. Sawyer

Born: April 11, 1911
Died: October 06, 1953
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Trivia: After working his way through the University of Cincinnati, Porter Hall slaved away as a Pennsylvania steel worker, then turned to acting, spending nearly 20 years building a solid reputation as a touring Shakespearean actor. Hall was 43 when he made his first film, Secrets of a Secretary. Never entertaining thoughts of playing romantic leads, Hall was content to parlay his weak chin and shifty eyes into dozens of roles calling for such unattractive character traits as cowardice, duplicity and plain old mean-spiritedness. Cast as a murder suspect in The Thin Man (1934), Hall's guilt was so transparent that it effectively ended the mystery even before it began. In DeMille's The Plainsman (1936), Hall played Jack McCall, the rattlesnake who shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back (his performance won Hall a Screen Actors Guild award). In the rollicking Murder He Says (1944), Hall portrays the whacked-out patriarch of a family of hillbilly murderers. And in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Hall is at his most odious as the neurosis-driven psychiatrist who endeavors to commit jolly old Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) to the booby hatch. Even with only one scene in Going My Way (1944), Hall manages to pack five reels' worth of venom into his role of a loudmouthed atheist. In real life, Hall was the exact opposite of his screen image: a loyal friend, a tireless charity worker, and a deacon at Hollywood's First Presbyterian Church. Porter Hall died at age 65 in 1953; his last film, released posthumously, was Return to Treasure Island (1954).

Gene Lockhart (Actor) .. Judge Henry X. Harper

Born: July 18, 1891
Died: March 31, 1957

Trivia: Canadian-born Gene Lockhart made his first stage appearance at age 6; as a teenager, he appeared in comedy sketches with another fledgling performer, Beatrice Lillie. Lockhart's first Broadway production was 1916's Riviera. His later credits on the Great White Way included Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesmen, in which Lockhart replaced Lee J. Cobb in the role of Willy Loman. In between acting assignments, Lockhart taught stage technique at the Juilliard School of Music. A prolific writer, Lockhart turned out a number of magazine articles and song lyrics, and contributed several routines to the Broadway revue Bunk of 1926, in which he also starred. After a false start in 1922, Lockhart launched his film career in 1934. His most familiar screen characterization was that of the cowardly criminal who cringed and snivelled upon being caught; he also showed up in several historical films as small-town stuffed shirts and bigoted disbelievers in scientific progress. When not trafficking in petty villainy, Lockhart was quite adept at roles calling for whimsy and confusion, notably Bob Cratchit in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and the beleaguered judge in A Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Extending his activities to television, Lockhart starred in the 1955 "dramedy" series His Honor, Homer Bell. Gene Lockhart was the husband of character actress Kathleen Lockhart, the father of leading lady June Lockhart, and the grandfather of 1980s ingenue Anne Lockhart.

William Frawley (Actor) .. Charles Halloran

Born: February 26, 1887
Died: March 03, 1966
Birthplace: Burlington, Iowa, United States

Trivia: American actor William Frawley had hopes of becoming a newspaperman but was sidetracked by a series of meat-and-potatoes jobs. At 21, he found himself in the chorus of a musical comedy in Chicago; his mother forced him to quit, but Frawley had already gotten greasepaint in his veins. Forming a vaudeville act with his brother Paul, Frawley hit the show-business trail; several partners later (including his wife Louise), Frawley was a headliner and in later years laid claim to having introduced the beer-hall chestnut "Melancholy Baby." Entering films in the early 1930s (he'd made a few desultory silent-movie appearances), Frawley became typecast as irascible, pugnacious Irishmen, not much of a stretch from his off-camera personality. Though he worked steadily into the late 1940s, Frawley's drinking got the better of him, and by 1951 most producers found him virtually unemployable. Not so Desi Arnaz, who cast Frawley as neighbor Fred Mertz on the I Love Lucy TV series when Gale Gordon proved unavailable. Frawley promised to stay away from the booze during filming, and in turn Arnaz promised to give Frawley time off whenever the New York Yankees were in the World Series (a rabid baseball fan, Frawley not only appeared in a half dozen baseball films, but also was one of the investors of the minor-league Hollywood Stars ball team). Frawley played Fred Mertz until the last I Love Lucy episode was filmed in 1960, then moved on to a five-year assignment as Bub, chief cook and bottle-washer to son-in-law Fred MacMurray's all male household on My Three Sons.

Jerome Cowan (Actor) .. District Attorney Thomas Mara

Born: October 06, 1897
Died: January 24, 1972

Trivia: From vaudeville and stock companies, actor Jerome Cowan graduated to Broadway in the now-forgotten farce We've Gotta Have Money. While starring in the 1935 Broadway hit Boy Meets Girl, Cowan was spotted by movie producer Sam Goldwyn, who cast Cowan as a sensitive Irish rebel in 1936's Beloved Enemy. Most of Cowan's subsequent films found him playing glib lawyers, shifty business executives and jilted suitors. A longtime resident at Warner Bros., the pencil-mustached Cowan appeared in several substantial character parts from 1940 through 1949, notably the doomed private eye Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon. Warners gave Cowan the opportunity to be a romantic leading man in two "B" films, Crime By Night (42) and Find the Blackmailer (43). As the years rolled on, Cowan's air of slightly unscrupulous urbanity gave way to respectability, and in this vein he was ideally suited for the role of Dagwood Bumstead's new boss Mr. Radcliffe in several installments of Columbia's Blondie series; he also scored in such flustered roles as the hapless district attorney in Miracle on 34th Street. Cowan briefly left Hollywood in 1950 to pursue more worthwhile roles on stage and TV; he starred in the Broadway play My Three Angels and was top-billed on the 1951 TV series Not for Publication. In his fifties and sixties, Cowan continued essaying roles calling for easily deflated dignity (e.g. The Three Stooges' Have Rocket Will Travel [59] and Jerry Lewis' Visit to a Small Planet [60]) and made regular supporting appearances on several TV series, among them Valiant Lady, The Tab Hunter Show, Many Happy Returns and Tycoon.

Philip Tonge (Actor) .. Mr. Shellhammer

Born: April 26, 1897
Died: January 28, 1959

Trivia: "Maybe he's only a little crazy, like painters or artists, or those men in Washington," Philip Tonge's apprehensive toy-department head, Mr. Shellhammer, pleaded in defense of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) in the holiday perennial Miracle on 34th St. (1947), perhaps the veteran stage actor's most memorable screen assignment. Tonge was a former child performer and lifelong friend and associate of Noël Coward (who publicly claimed to have had his initial sexual encounter with him at the age of 13). The British-born actor had originated the part of Dr. Bradman in the initial Broadway production of Blithe Spirit in 1941, a role he would re-create for an early television presentation five years later. Noticeable by his prominent proboscis and a receding chin, Tonge also added memorable moments to such diverse films as Witness for the Prosecution (1957) as the inspector, and the sci-fi thriller Invisible Invaders (1959). He ended his long career playing the recurring role of General Amherst on television's Northwest Passage (1958-1959).

Jack Albertson (Actor) .. Post Office Employee

Born: June 16, 1907
Died: November 25, 1981
Birthplace: Malden, Massachusetts, United States

Trivia: On stage from his teens (as part of the "Dancing Verselle Sisters" troupe), Jack Albertson worked in almost any form of live entertainment you could name: vaudeville, burlesque, legitimate stage, even opera. For two years he was straight man to comedian Phil Silvers on the Minsky's Burlesque Circuit, carrying over this partnership in Silvers' hit Broadway musicals High Button Shoes (1947) and Top Banana (1953). Albertson began taking bit roles in films in 1938; among his many fleeting film parts was the postal worker who redirected all of Santa Claus' mail to the New York Courthouse in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). On television, Albertson was a frequent guest star on the Burns and Allen Show and had regular roles on The Thin Man (1957-59) and Ensign O'Toole (1963). He also co-starred with Sam Groom on the 1971 syndicated series Dr. Simon Locke--at least until angrily walking off the series due to its severe budget deficiencies. Albertson became an "overnight success" with his portrayal of Martin Sheen's taciturn father in the 1964 Broadway play The Subject Was Roses, which earned him a Tony Award; he repeated the role in the 1968 film version, winning an Oscar in the process. Albertson added a pair of Emmies to his shelf for his performance as crotchety garage owner Ed Brown on the TV sitcom Chico and the Man (1974-77), and for his guest appearance on a 1975 episode of the variety series Cher. Jack Albertson was the brother of character actress Mabel Albertson.

Harry Antrim (Actor) .. Mr. Macy

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: January 01, 1967

Trivia: American character actor Harry Antrim is noted for his versatility. He primarily appeared in films of the '40s and '50s following extensive theatrical and opera experience.

Lela Bliss (Actor) .. Mrs. Shellhammer

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

Thelma Ritter (Actor) .. Peter's Mother

Born: February 14, 1905
Died: February 05, 1969
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, United States

Trivia: At the tender age of eight, Thelma Ritter was regaling the students and faculty of Brooklyn's Public School 77 with her recitals of such monologues as "Mr. Brown Gets His Haircut" and "The Story of Cremona". After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, Ritter was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Throughout the Depression years, she and her actor husband Joe Moran did everything short of robbing banks to support themselves; when vaudeville and stage assignments dried up, they entered slogan and jingle contests. Moran forsook performing to become an actor's agent in the mid-1930s, while Ritter also briefly gave up acting to raise a family. She started working professionally again in 1940 as a radio performer. In 1946, director George Seaton, an old friend of Ritter, offered her a bit role in the upcoming New York-lensed Miracle on 34th Street. Ritter's single scene as a weary Yuletide shopper went over so well that 20th Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the actress' role be expanded. After Ritter garnered good notices for her unbilled Miracle role, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote a part specifically for her in his 1948 film A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She was afforded screen billing for the first time in 1949's City Across the River. During the first few years of her 20th Century-Fox contract, Ritter was Oscar-nominated for her performance as Bette Davis' acerbic maid in All About Eve, and for her portrayal of upwardly mobile John Lund's just-folks mother in The Mating Season (1951). In all, the actress would receive five nominations -- the other three were for With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953) and Pillow Talk (1959) -- though she never won the gold statuette. Ritter finally received star billing in the comedy/drama The Model and the Marriage Broker (1952), in which she assuages her own loneliness by finding suitable mates for others. After a showcase part as James Stewart's nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Ritter made do with standard film supporting parts and starring roles on TV. In 1957, Ritter appeared as waterfront barfly Marthy in the Broadway musical New Girl in Town, a bowdlerization of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Ritter interrupted her still-thriving screen career in 1965 for another Broadway appearance in James Kirkwood's UTBU. Shortly after a 1968 guest appearance on TV's The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which would ultimately prove fatal; the actress' last screen appearance, like her first, was a cameo role in a George Seaton-directed comedy, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). Ritter's daughter, Monica Moran, also pursued an acting career from the 1940s through the 1970s.

James Seay (Actor) .. Dr. Pierce

Born: January 01, 1914
Died: January 01, 1992

Trivia: James Seay was groomed for romantic leads by Paramount Pictures beginning in 1940. After several nondescript minor roles, Seay finally earned a major part--not as a hero, but as a villainous gang boss in the Columbia "B" The Face Behind the Mask (1941). Never quite reaching the top ranks, Seay nonetheless remained on the film scene as a dependable general purpose actor, appearing in such small but attention-getting roles as Dr. Pierce, the retirement-home physician who explains the eccentricities of "Kris Kringle" (Edmund Gwenn) in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). In the 1950s, James Seay joined the ranks of horror and sci-fi movie "regulars;" he could be seen in films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Killers from Space (1954), The Beginning of the End (1957), and--as the luckless military officer who is skewered by a gigantic hypodermic needle--The Amazing Colossal Man (1957).

Mary Field (Actor) .. Mother

Born: June 10, 1909

Trivia: Actress Mary Field kept her private life such a well-guarded secret that not even her most devoted fans (including several film historians who've attempted to write biographies of the actress) have ever been able to find out anything about her background. So far as anyone can ascertain, she entered films around 1937; her first important assignment was the dual role of the mothers of the title characters in The Prince and the Pauper (1937). Viewers may not know the name but they have seen the face: too thin and sharp-featured to be beautiful, too soft and kindly to be regarded as homely. Mary Field is the actress who played Huntz Hall's sister in the 1941 Universal serial Sea Raiders; the spinsterish sponsor of Danny Kaye's doctoral thesis in A Song of Born (1947); the nice lady standing in Macy's "Santa Claus" line with the little Dutch girl in Miracle on 34th Street (1947); the long-suffering music teacher in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950); and Harold Peary's bespectacled vis-a-vis in The Great Gildersleeve (1942)--to name just four films among hundreds.

Theresa Harris (Actor) .. Cleo

Born: January 01, 1909
Died: January 01, 1985

Trivia: American actress Theresa Harris made her screen debut as one of the sullen "camp followers" in Josef von Sternberg's Morocco. Like most black performers working in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s, Harris was generally limited to servant roles. One of the more artistically rewarding of these was Josephine, the object of Eddie "Rochester" Anderson's affections in the Jack Benny vehicle Buck Benny Rides Again (1940). Harries and Anderson worked so well together that they were reteamed in the same roles in another Benny comedy, Love Thy Neighbor (1940). Evidently a favorite of RKO producer Val Lewton, Harris was prominently cast in several of Lewton's productions of the 1940s, most entertainingly as the cheerfully sarcastic waitress in Cat People (1943). Theresa Harris remained in films until 1958, her characters slowly moving up the social ladder to include nurses and governesses.

Alvin Greenman (Actor) .. Albert

Trivia: As a dialogue coach and script supervisor, Alvin Greenman has worked on such successful television series as Hearts Afire and in movies ranging from Dead and Buried to The Longest Yard. As an actor, however, he carved out a memorable place for himself in American cinema in the 1940s with his portrayal of Alfred, the innocent, idealistic, good-natured department store employee in George Seaton's Miracle on 34th Street. Greenman made his screen debut in that movie, which has proved to be one of the most perennially popular Christmas movies of the 1940s -- he is remembered by generations of filmgoers for his innocent, curly haired visage and for his honest reading of lines like, "There is a lot of bad ism's floating around this world and one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck, make a buck. Even in Brooklyn it's the same -- don't care what Chistmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck." Greenman appeared in a handful of subsequent films during the late '40s and early '50s (including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and the Korean War drama One Minute to Zero), but Miracle on 34th Street was his most memorable work. He gave up acting later in the decade and next surfaced as a crew member, serving as script supervisor on Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard (1974). He has confined his work exclusively to the production end of the business since, including the movies Twilight's Last Gleaming, Ice Castles, and House of Cards. In Richard J. Baskin's Canadian-made feature Sing (a cross between Rocky and Fame), he served as dialogue coach, teaching the largely Canadian cast how to speak with Brooklyn accents. He was busy in the early '90s on television in the series Hearts Afire, on which he also worked onscreen in small roles as well as behind the scenes as script supervisor. In 1994, Greenman returned to feature films in the latest remake of Miracle on 34th Street, playing a small role in the big-budget color film. In 2001, he also participated, along with Maureen O'Hara and other surviving cast members, in an American Movie Classics cable documentary about the making of the original 1947 film.

Anne Staunton (Actor) .. Mrs. Mara

Robert Hyatt (Actor) .. Thomas Mara Jr.

Born: December 29, 1939

Richard Irving (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: February 13, 1917
Died: January 01, 1990

Jeff Corey (Actor) .. Reporter

Born: August 10, 1914
Died: August 16, 2002
Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York

Trivia: American actor Jeff Corey forsook a job as sewing-machine salesman for the less stable world of New York theatre in the 1930s. The 26-year-old Corey was regarded as a valuable character-actor commodity when he arrived in Hollywood in 1940. Perhaps the best of his many early unbilled appearances was in the Kay Kyser film You'll Find Out (40), in which Corey, playing a game-show contestant (conveniently named Jeff Corey), was required to sing a song while stuffing his mouth full of crackers. The actor was busiest during the "film noir" mid-to-late 1940s, playing several weasely villain roles; it is hard to forget the image of Corey, in the role of a slimy stoolie in Burt Lancaster's Brute Force, being tied to the front of a truck and pushed directly into a hail of police bullets. Corey's film career ended abruptly in 1952 when he was unfairly blacklisted for his left-leaning political beliefs. To keep food on the table, Corey became an acting coach, eventually running one of the top training schools in the business (among his more famous pupils was Jack Nicholson). He was permitted to return to films in the 1960s, essaying such roles as a wild-eyed wino in Lady in a Cage (64), the louse who kills Kim Darby's father in True Grit (68), and a sympathetic sheriff in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (68). In addition to his film work, Jeff Corey has acted in and directed numerous TV series; he was seen as a regular on the 1985 Robert Blake series Hell Town and the 1986 Earl Hamner Jr. production Morningstar/Eveningstar. The following decade found Corey appearing in such films as Sinatra (1992), Beethoven's 2nd (1993) and the action thriller Surviving the Game (1994). Shortly after suffering a fall at his Malibu home in August of 2002, Corey died in Santa Monica due to complications resulting from the accident. He was 88.

Anne O'Neal (Actor) .. Secretary

Born: December 23, 1893
Died: November 24, 1971

Trivia: Stage actress Anne O'Neal first showed up onscreen as a street singer in John Ford's The Informer. Well suited for such roles as spinsterish gossips and baleful landladies, O'Neal kept busy in the mid-'30s with the Columbia Pictures short-subject unit, serving as the foil for such comics as Andy Clyde and the Three Stooges. During the 1940s, she was a semi-regular in the one- and two-reel productions of MGM, showing up in the Passing Parade, Our Gang, and Crime Does Not Pay series. Her feature-film credits include such small but memorable roles as psychiatrist Porter Hall's neurotic secretary in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and Miss Sifert in the cult classic Gun Crazy (1949). Anne O'Neal spent her last active years in television, most poignantly as one of the "rejuvenated" senior citizens in the 1962 Twilight Zone episode "Kick the Can."

Anthony Sydes (Actor) .. Peter

Born: May 04, 1941

William Forrest (Actor) .. Dr. Rogers

Born: January 01, 1904
Died: January 01, 1989

Trivia: Baby boomers will recall silver-maned actor William Forrest as Major Swanson, the brusque but fair-minded commander of Fort Apache in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. This character was but one of many military officers portrayed by the prolific Forrest since the late 1930s. Most of his film appearances were fleeting, and few were billed, but Forrest managed to pack more authority into 30 seconds' film time than many bigger stars were able to manage in an hour and a half. Outside of Rin Tin Tin, William Forrest is probably most familiar as the sinister fifth-columnist Martin Crane in the 1943 Republic serial The Masked Marvel.

Alvin Hammer (Actor) .. Mara's Assistant

Born: January 02, 1915

Trivia: American character actor Alvin Hammer performed in vaudeville, on stage, in nightclubs, on television, and in many films between the '40s and the late '80s.

Joseph McInerney (Actor) .. Bailiff

Ida McGuire (Actor) .. Drum Majorette

Percy Helton (Actor) .. Santa Claus

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: September 11, 1971

Trivia: The son of actors, Percy Helton began his own career at age two in a Tony Pastor revue in which his parents were performing. The undersized Helton was a valuable juvenile player for producer David Belasco, making his film debut in a 1915 Belasco production, The Fairy and the Waif. Helton matured into adult roles under the stern guidance of George M. Cohan. After serving in the Army during World War I, Helton established himself on Broadway, appearing in such productions as Young America, One Sunday Afternoon and The Fabulous Invalid. He made his talkie debut in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street, playing the inebriated Macy's Santa Claus whom Edmund Gwenn replaces. Perhaps the quintessential "who is that?" actor, Helton popped up, often uncredited, in over one hundred succinct screen characterizations. Forever hunched over and eternally short of breath, he played many an obnoxious clerk, nosey mailman, irascible bartender, officious train conductor and tremulous stool pigeon. His credits include Fancy Pants (1950), The Robe (1953), White Christmas (1954), Rally Round the Flag Boys (1959), The Music Man (1962) and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1965), as well as two appearances as sweetshop proprietor Mike Clancy in the Bowery Boys series. Thanks to his trademarked squeaky voice, and because he showed up in so many "cult" films (Wicked Woman, Kiss Me Deadly, Sons of Katie Elder), Helton became something of a high-camp icon in his last years. In this vein, Percy Helton was cast as the "Heraldic Messenger" in the bizarre Monkees vehicle Head (he showed up at the Monkees' doorstep with a beautiful blonde manacled to his wrist!), the treacherous Sweetieface in the satirical western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the bedraggled bank clerk Cratchit on the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Jane Green (Actor) .. Mrs. Harper

Marlene Lyden (Actor) .. Dutch Girl

Guy Thomajan (Actor) .. Post Office Employee

Born: April 22, 1919

Robert Lynn (Actor) .. Macy's Salesman

Born: November 07, 1897
Died: December 01, 1969

Jean O'donnell (Actor) .. Secretary

Snub Pollard (Actor) .. Mail-Bearing Court Officer

Born: November 09, 1889

Robert Karnes (Actor) .. Intern

Born: January 01, 1916
Died: January 01, 1979

Basil Walker (Actor) .. Intern

Herbert Heyes (Actor) .. Mr. Gimbel

Born: August 03, 1889
Died: May 30, 1958

Trivia: Herbert Heyes was somewhere between the ages of 10 and 13 when he first trod the boards as a member of the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon. By 1910, Heyes was playing leads in the touring company run by actor/manager James K. Hackett. He was firmly established on Broadway when, in 1916, he was hired by Fox Films to play opposite Theda Bara in a series of steamy romances (Under Two Flags, Salome, etc.). Returning to New York, Heyes remained a busy stage and radio actor into the 1940s. He resumed his film career in the early 1940s, playing such character parts as department store magnate Mr. Gimbel in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Ronald Reagan's prospective father-in-law in Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), and his favorite screen role, manufacturer Charles Eastman in George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951). Heyes' dignified demeanor kept him in demand throughout the 1950s for minor but pivotal roles like President Thomas Jefferson in The Far Horizons (1955) and General Pershing in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). Herbert Heyes was the father of writer/director Douglas Heyes, of Maverick and Twilight Zone fame.

Steve Roberts (Actor) .. Guard

Born: January 01, 1917
Died: October 26, 1999

Teddy Driver (Actor) .. Terry

Robert Gist (Actor) .. Window Dresser

Born: January 01, 1924

Patty Smith (Actor) .. Alice

Harry "Snub" Pollard (Actor) .. Mail-Bearing Court Officer

Born: November 09, 1886
Died: January 19, 1962

Trivia: Breaking into show business with the Australian vaudeville troupe Pollard's Lilliputians, Harold Fraser adopted the name "Pollard" professionally when the group broke up during an American tour. Variously billed as Harry Pollard and Snub Pollard, he entered films at Essanay in 1911, then worked briefly at Keystone before settling down in 1915 at the fledgling Hal Roach studios. Adopting an inverted Kaiser Wilhelm moustache as his comic escutcheon, he co-starred with Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels in a series of knockabout slapstick comedies, moving into his own starring series in 1919. Pollard's one- and two-reelers of the early '20s, many of them directed by Charley Chase, were chock full of delightful sight gags and clever gimmickry, and had the added advantage of an unusually attractive leading lady, Marie Mosquini (later the wife of television pioneer Lee DeForrest). Alas, Pollard himself was a very limited performer, a fact that became painfully obvious when he left Roach to set up his own production company in 1926. By the end of the silent era he was working for the Poverty Row firm of Weiss-Artcraft, appearing opposite fat comedian Marvin Loback in a series of cheap comedies "inspired" by Roach's Laurel and Hardy films. Reduced to bit-part status when talkies came, Pollard flourished briefly in the late '30s as the comic sidekick of Western star Tex Ritter, and as a supporting player in the Columbia two-reelers of the 1940s. Like many other film veterans, he remained on call for such "nostalgic" silent movie tributes as The Perils of Pauline (1947) and The Man of 1000 Faces (1957), appearing in the latter film in a pie fight sequence with James Cagney. Active in films and TV right up to his death, Snub Pollard continued appearing in such fleeting roles as a tattoo artist in Who Was That Lady (1960) and a superannuated bellboy in William Castle's Homicidal (1961).

Walden Boyle (Actor) .. Judge's Clerk

Dorothy Christy (Actor) .. Secretary

Born: May 26, 1906
Died: January 01, 1977

Trivia: Blonde American actress Dorothy Christy thrived in the early 1930s as an excellent second lead and comedy foil. Christy seemed most at home in slapstick comedies: she played the older sister who must be married off to clear the way for her younger sister's happiness in Buster Keaton's Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) and rifle-wielding Mrs. Betty Laurel ("I've never missed yet!") in Laurel & Hardy's Sons of the Desert (1933). She was also quite adept at conveying icy truculence, notably as the gossiping socialite in Devil and the Deep (1932) and as bratty Jane Withers' avaricious mother in the 1934 Shirley Temple musical Bright Eyes. Perhaps her most offbeat role was Queen Tika, ruler of the underground city of Murania, in the camp-classic serial Phantom Empire (1935). Throughout the 1940s, she continued playing supporting roles in the 2-reelers of such comics as Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy, and bits in features, most often in those productions helmed by her Sons of the Desert director William A. Seiter (Little Giant, Lover Come Back etc.) At various junctures in her film career, Dorothy Christy billed herself as Dorothy Christie.

Dick Cogan (Actor) .. Department Store Head

Mike Donovan (Actor) .. Court Bailiff

Jack Gargan (Actor) .. Chauffeur

Born: February 08, 1900