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Alan Mowbray MM, (18 August 1896 - 25 March 1969), was an English stage and film actor who found success in Hollywood. Born Alfred Ernest Allen in London, England, he served with distinction the British Army in World War I, being awarded the Military Medal for bravery. He began as a stage actor, making his way to the United States where he appeared in Broadway plays and toured the country as part of a theater troupe. As Alan Mowbray, he made his motion picture debut in 1931, going on to a career primarily as a character actor in more than 140 films including the sterling butler role in the comedy Merrily We Live, and playing the title role in the TV series The Adventures of Colonel Flack. During World War II, he made a memorable appearance as the Devil in the Hal Roach propaganda comedy The Devil with Hitler. He appeared in some two dozen guest roles on various television series. Mowbray was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, with outside interests that led to membership in Britain's Royal Geographic Society. He played the title role in the television series Colonel Humphrey Flack, which first appeared in 1953-1954 and then was revived in 1958-1959. In the 1954-1955 television season Mowbray played Mr. Swift, the drama coach of the character Mickey Mulligan, in NBC's short-lived situation comedy The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan. Mowbray died of a heart attack in 1969 in Hollywood and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
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Adele Mara (April 28, 1923 – May 7, 2010), born Adelaide Delgado, was an American actress, singer and dancer who appeared in films during the 1940s and 1950s. During the 1940s, the blond actress was also a popular pinup girl.
One of her early roles was as a receptionist in the Three Stooges film I Can Hardly Wait. Other films include The Vampire's Ghost, Wake of the Red Witch, Angel in Exile, Sands of Iwo Jima, California Passage, and Don Siegel's Count the Hours. In 1961 appeared as a guest star with Cesar Romero on The Red Skelton Show in a sketch titled "Deadeye & The Alamo" - she played Elaine the nurse. Born in Highland Park, Michigan, of Spanish descent, she was married to television writer/producer Roy Huggins and appeared as a dancer in three episodes of his 1957 television series Maverick. Mara died of natural causes on May 7, 2010. Description above from the Wikipedia article Adele Mara, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Sarah Edwards (October 11, 1881 – January 7, 1965) was a Welsh-born American film and stage actress. She often played dowagers or spinsters in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in minor roles. Edwards started her acting career as a stage actress, she was described in 1916 by a newspaper article as a leading actress "very popular with West End theatre-goers".[1] She eventually settled in the United States and appeared in six Broadway plays between 1919 and 1931, primarily in comedies like The Merry Malones by George M. Cohan. Among her first movies was the New York-filmed 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl (1929), where she portrayed the mercenary mother of leading actress Mary Eaton. She came to Hollywood in the mid-1930s where she appeared in about 190 films until her retirement 1951, mostly in uncredited, small character roles. Sarah Edwards died in Hollywood in 1965, aged 83.
Edwards seemed older than she was and often portrayed a "kindly grandmother, imperious dowager, hardy pioneer wife, ill-tempered teacher and strict governess". She remains perhaps best-known to modern audiences as the imperious mother of Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) in Frank Capra's film classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) who tries to keep her daughter away from George Bailey. Edwards also played a customer in Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940) with James Stewart. She also appeared in another Christmas classic, The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, and as the wife of a doctor on the train in Hitchcock's thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Edwards sometimes also portrayed more substantial roles, for instance in the Charlie Chan movie Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).
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Earle Hodgins (October 6, 1893 – April 14, 1964) was an American actor.
Early in his career, Hodgins was active in stock theater, including working in the Ralph Cloninger troupe of Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Siegel Stock company of Seattle, Washington.
He appeared in over 330 films and television shows between 1932 and 1963. He specialized in playing fast-talking con men—often in westerns, such as The Lone Ranger, Judge Roy Bean, The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, Rawhide, Maverick, Lawman, The Rifleman, Cheyenne, Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke and Hopalong Cassidy. In the 1960-1961 season, he appeared in three episodes of Joanne Dru's ABC sitcom, Guestward, Ho! as the aging ranch wrangler known as "Lonesome." In one of those episodes, "Lonesome's Gal", he was cast opposite ZaSu Pitts. Thereafter, the two died within a year of each other.
Hodgins' other television roles were as carnival barkers, medicine-show salesmen, and the like. He was known for shooing away obstreporous children from his stage, snapping at them, "Get away, son, ya bother me".
Hodgins married Sue Hanley, who was described in a newspaper item as "a Seattle society girl."
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Richard "Dick" Elliott (April 30, 1886 – December 22, 1961) was an American character actor who played in over 240 films from the 1930s until the time of his death.
He was born Richard Damon Elliott in Boston, Massachusetts.
Elliott played many different roles, typically as a somewhat blustery sort, such as a politician. A short, fat man, Elliott played Santa Claus on the Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, and Jack Benny programs. Elliott had a couple of memorable lines in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), in which he scolded James Stewart, who was trying to say goodnight to Donna Reed, advising him to stop hemming and hawing and "just go ahead and kiss her".
He also had a few memorable appearances in episodes of the Adventures of Superman television series. He appeared three times as Stanley on the CBS sitcom December Bride, as well as on two of ABC/Warner Brothers' western series, Sugarfoot and Maverick. He was cast as the prospector Peter Cooper and then as Sheriff Tiny Morris in two segments of CBS's Tales of the Texas Rangers. He appeared twice as Doc Thornton on ABC's The Real McCoys. Elliott is perhaps best known as Mayberry's Mayor Pike in early episodes of CBS's The Andy Griffith Show, one of his last screen works. In two of the eleven episodes featuring Elliot as mayor, actress Josie Lloyd portrayed his daughter.
On December 22, 1961, Elliott died from heart illness.