Ian Hunter (13 June 1900 – 22 September 1975) was a British character actor.
Among dozens of film roles, his best-remembered appearances include That Certain Woman (1937) with Bette Davis, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, as King Richard the Lionheart), The Little Princess (1939, as Captain Reginald Crewe) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941, as Dr. Lanyon). Hunter returned to the Robin Hood legend in the 1955 TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood in the recurring role of Sir Richard of the Lea.
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John Litel was an American stage, screen, and television actor. From 1919 to 1936 he performed in several plays on Broadway. In 1929 he began appearing in films and was in over 200 movies throughout his career. Litel often played supporting roles such as hard-nosed cops and district attorneys. He appeared in many television series. John Litel's acting career concluded in 1967.
Donald Crisp was born George William Crisp at the family home in Bow, London. Donald's parents were James Crisp and Elizabeth Crisp, his birth was registered by his mother on 4th September 1882. Donald's sisters were Elizabeth, Ann, Alice (known as Louisa) and Eliza and his brothers were James, John and Mark. Family memories state that Donald's brother-in-law James Needham (Louisa's husband) lent/gave Donald the fare to USA. The family have a photo of Donald which he sent to 'Jimmy' and signed. On 16th February 1937 Donald applied for a US Social Security account number giving his address as N Vista Street Hollywood California, and his employers Warner Brothers Pictures, Burbank California. On his application Donald did not know his mother's maiden name.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Minna Gombell (May 28, 1892 – April 14, 1973) was an American film actress of the 1930s and 1940s.
She appeared in 50 Hollywood films including; Laurel and Hardy's Block-Heads, The Merry Widow, The First Year, Boom Town, High Sierra, Hoop-La, The Thin Man, and The Best Years of Our Lives.
Her third husband was the film writer, producer and director Myron Coureval Fagan.
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George Melville Cooper (15 October 1896 – 13 March 1973), best known as Melville Cooper, was a British stage, film and television actor. Among his roles are the cowardly Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, and Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, with Greer Garson.
His stage debut came in Stratford-Upon-Avon at the age of eighteen. In 1934, he moved to the United States, where he was usually cast as ineffectual snobs or crooks. As his film career wound down in the 1950s, he turned to television and back to the stage. He was an early panelist on the American game show I've Got A Secret.
Cooper died in 1973 and was interred at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
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Vera Lewis (June 10, 1873 – February 8, 1956) was an American film and stage actress, beginning in the silent film era. She appeared in 183 films between 1915 and 1947. She was married to actor Ralph Lewis.
She was born in Manhattan, where she began acting in stage productions. Her film career started in 1915 with the film Hypocrites, which starred Myrtle Stedman and Courtenay Foote. From 1915 to 1929 she appeared in 63 silent films, including the film classic Intolerance (1916) where she played the "old maid" Miss Jenkins.
Unlike many silent film stars, she made a smooth transition to "talking films", starting with her 1930 appearance in Wide Open, starring Patsy Ruth Miller and Edward Everett Horton. Though never what is referred to as a "premier star", she appeared in 58 films during the 1930s, and another 60 during the 1940s. She retired after 1947, and resided at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, California at the time of her death on February 8, 1956.
Nat Carr (born Natan Krechevsky; August 12, 1886 – July 6, 1944) was an American character actor of the silent and early talking picture eras. During his eighteen-year career, Carr appeared in over 100 films, most of the features.
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Chester Clute (February 18, 1891 – April 2, 1956) was an American actor familiar in scores of Hollywood films from his debut in 1930. Diminutive, bald-pated with a bristling moustache, he appeared in mostly unbilled roles, consisting usually of one or two lines, in nearly 250 films.
He died of a heart attack aged 65. Born Chester Lamont Clute in Orange, New Jersey. He died in Woodland Hills, California and is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
Edward McWade was an American writer and stage and screen actor. He appeared in more than 132 films from 1919 to 1944, mostly in secondary roles. He also wrote 15 stage plays and silent film scenarios.
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Clem Bevans (October 16, 1879 – August 11, 1963) was an American character actor best remembered for playing eccentric, grumpy old men.
Bevans had a very long career, starting in vaudeville in 1900 in an act with Grace Emmett. He progressed to burlesque, Broadway, and even light opera, before making his film debut at the age of 55 in Way Down East (1935). His portrayal was so good, he became stereotyped and played mostly likable old codgers for the rest of his life. Bevans played the neighbour of Gregory Peck in The Yearling and the gatekeeper in Harvey (1950). However, he did occasionally play against type, for example as a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). He also made some television appearances, including the role of murderer Captain Hugo in the 1958 Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Demure Defendant" and as Pete in The Twilight Zone episode "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" (1962). He played Captain Cobb in Disney's TV miniseries Davy Crockett.
His first cousin was actress Merie Earle, best known as Maude Gormley on The Waltons.
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Mary Louise Comingore, best known professionally as Dorothy Comingore (August 24, 1913 – December 30, 1971), was an American film actress. She is best known for starring as Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), the critically acclaimed debut film of Orson Welles. In earlier films she was credited as Linda Winters, and she had appeared on the stage as Kay Winters. Her career ended when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist. She declined to answer questions when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
Jack Mower (born Benjamin Allen Mower) was an American screen and television actor. He appeared in hundreds of films between 1914 and 1964. Mower also, during the mid 1920s, produced seven silent films.
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Maurice George Costello (February 22, 1877 – October 29, 1950) was an American prominent vaudeville actor of the late 1890s and early 1900s, who later played a principal role in early American films, as both a leading man, supporting player and a director.
Costello was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants Ellen and Thomas Costello. He appeared in his first motion picture in 1905, in which he had the honour of appearing in the first serious film to feature the character of Sherlock Holmes in the movie Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in which Costello played the title role. He continued to work for Vitagraph, being a member of the first motion picture stock company ever formed, playing opposite Florence Turner. Among some of his best known pictures are A Tale of Two Cities, The Man Who Couldn't Beat God and For the Honor of the Family. After an absence of some years he returned to the screen. He was married to actress Mae Costello (née Altschuk). His descendants include two daughters, actresses Dolores Costello and Helene Costello, a grandson John Drew Barrymore, and a great granddaughter Drew Barrymore. He was one of the world's first leading men in early American cinema, but like a lot of other silent screen stars, he found the transition to "talkies" extremely difficult, and his leading man status was over. However, Costello was a trouper, and continued to appear in movies, often in small roles and bit parts, right up until his death in 1950.
Susan Hayward (June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American actress.
After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone With the Wind (1939). Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s the quality of her film roles had improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958).
By this time, Hayward was married and living in Georgia and her film appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. She died in 1975 following a long battle with brain cancer.
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Barry Nelson (April 16, 1917 – April 7, 2007) was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.
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Sidney Bracey (18 December 1877 – 5 August 1942) was an Australian-born American actor. After a stage career in Australia, on Broadway and in Britain, he appeared in 321 films between 1909 and 1942.
Bracey was born in Melbourne, Victoria, with the name Sidney Bracy, later changing the spelling of his last name. He was the son of Welsh tenor Henry Bracy and English actress Clara T. Bracy. His aunt was actress and dancer Lydia Thompson.
He began his stage career in Australia in the 1890s, with J. C. Williamson's comic opera companies. On Broadway, in 1900, he appeared as the tenor lead, Yussuf, in the first American production of The Rose of Persia at Daly's Theatre in New York. He then moved to England, appearing as Moreno in the Edwardian musical comedy hit The Toreador at the Gaiety Theatre, London in June 1901. He next joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company on tour in Britain, playing Terence O'Brian in The Emerald Isle from September 1901 to May 1902. He then left the D'Oyly Carte, continuing his stage career in Britain. He appeared in Amorelle at London's Comedy Theatre in 1904, The Winter's Tale in 1904–05, and A Persian Princess at Queen's Theatre in 1909.
Back on Broadway, in 1912, he played as Sir Guy of Gisborne in a revival of Reginald de Koven's Robin Hood at the New Amsterdam Theatre, followed by Rob Roy at the Liberty Theatre in 1913. He then moved into film acting, making first silent films and then "talkies", until his death in 1942. Early in his film career, he wrote and directed a silent movie called Sid Nee's Finish, (Thanhouser Company (1914), in which he played the title character. In 1916, he changed the spelling of his last name to "Bracey". Silent film authority Diane MacIntyre gave this description of him: "Bracey, a stately looking character man, was in big demand for authority like roles; such as movie directors, bosses and, most of the time, the most respectable and poised butler in all of Hollywood. He was thin, dark haired and had an earnest, yet sober, face that could break into a look of wide-eyed exasperation."
Bracy died in Hollywood, California on 5 August 1942, aged 64.
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Lester Dorr (born Harry Lester Dorr; May 8, 1893 - August 25, 1980) was an American actor who between 1917 and 1975 appeared in well over 500 productions on stage, in feature films and shorts, and in televised plays and weekly series. His extensive filmography attests to his versatility as a supporting actor and reliability as a bit player. Although Dorr's screen roles are at times credited, the great majority of his work is uncredited. Dorr was cast in more than 250 films in just the 1930s alone.
Dorr continued to appear regularly in studio productions throughout the 1940s, but with reduced frequency when compared to the preceding decade; nevertheless, he still added more than 140 Hollywood films to his résumé in that decade. His work on the big screen decreased even further in the 1950s as acting opportunities increased on television. He was, though, cast in at least 45 feature films and shorts during the 1950s. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, programming in the rapidly expanding medium of television attracted the talents of many experienced personnel in the film industry, including Dorr.
As with his film career, Dorr’s 15 years of being cast in television series consisted predominantly of brief appearances on screen and portraying characters who had relatively few lines. Yet, his characterizations on television, like in films, were highly diverse and can be seen in at least 84 episodes of Westerns, crime and detective series, courtroom and hospital dramas, adventure programs, and sitcoms of the period.
Charles R. Moore (April 23, 1893, Chicago, Illinois - July 20, 1947, Los Angeles, California) was an African-American actor who appeared in over 100 films in his acting career, and was sometimes credited as Charles Moore or Charlie Moore Moore played small parts such as servants, bootblacks, elevator operators, menial laborers, and, especially, railroad porters and Red Caps. Film buffs may remember him in Meet John Doe where he played the City Hall janitor trying to smoke a cigar while washing the floor on the Christmas Eve that John Doe has threatened to jump off the building. Moore was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in six of Sturges' films. In Sullivan's Travels, Moore had a memorable moment as the chef who is propelled headfirst through the roof of the land yacht during the chase scene. Moore was also a dancer, but that skill was not often called for in his film appearances.
Frank O'Connor was an American screen and television actor, as well as a director, screenwriter, and producer. His lengthy film acting career began in 1915.
Frank Orth was an American actor born in Philadelphia. He is probably best remembered for his portrayal of Inspector Faraday in the 1951-1953 television series “Boston Blackie”. By 1897, Orth was performing in vaudeville with his wife, Ann Codee, in an act called “Codee and Orth.” In 1909, he expanded into song writing, with songs such as “The Phone Bell Rang” and “Meet Me on the Boardwalk, Dearie.” His first contact with motion pictures was in 1928, when he was part of the first foreign-language shorts in sound produced by Warner Bros. He and his wife also appeared together in a series of two-reel comedies in the early 1930s. Orth's first major screen credit was in “Prairie Thunder,” a Dick Foran western, in 1937. From then on, he was often cast as bartenders, pharmacists, and grocery clerks, and always distinctly Irish. He had a recurring role in the Dr. Kildare series of films and also in the Nancy Drew series as the befuddled Officer Tweedy. Among his better roles were the newspaper man Cary Grant telephones early in “His Girl Friday,” one of the quartet singing “Gary Owen” in “They Died with Their Boots On” (thereby giving Errol Flynn as Gen. Custer the idea of associating the tune with the 7th Cavalry), and as the little man carrying the sign reading “The End Is Near” throughout Colonel Effingham's Raid. However, Orth is probably best remembered for his portrayal of Inspector Faraday in the 1951-1953 television series “Boston Blackie.” A short, plump, round-faced man, often smoking a cigar, Orth as Faraday wore his own dark-rimmed spectacles, though rarely in feature films. In 1959, Orth retired from show business after throat surgery. His wife died in 1961 after around fifty years of marriage. Orth died on March 17, 1962. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills next to his wife.
Charles Seel (April 29, 1897 – April 19, 1980) was an American actor. He acted in over 30 films from 1938 to 1974 and appeared in over one hundred titles for television from 1952 to 1974. He was also credited as Charles Seal and Charles F. Seel.
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Charles Emmett Vogan was an American actor with almost 500 film appearances from 1934–54, making him, along with Bess Flowers, one of the most prolific film actors of all time.
Leo White (born Leo Weiss) grew up in England and began his stage career there. In 1910 he came to the United States and the following year started working in Silent films. Typically cast as a dapper continental villain or a nobleman, White frequently played uncredited bit parts and as a character actor in many Charlie Chaplin productions. Multiple online sites indicate that he was born in 1882. However his grave marker clearly presents birth year as having been 1873.