Great Character Actor - No Kidding

Una O'Connor (1880 - 1959) She most often played Cockney and English roles but she was pure Irish. This delightful, diminutive, at 5' 2", actress was a joy to watch. With a sharp featured face, cackling voice and birdlike mannerisms she was often cast as shrews, maids, spinsters, nagging wives and gossips. She was a most memorable character actress. Born Agnes Teresa McGlade in Belfast, Northern Ireland on October 23, 1880 she began her acting career with Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre graduating on to the London and Broadway stages. She made her film debut in 1929 in "Dark Red Roses" as Mrs. Meeks. Among her other film credits were: "Murder!" (1930) as Mrs. Grogram; "Cavalcade" (1933) which brought her to Hollywood to recreate her stage role as Ellen Bridges; "Timbuctoo" (1933) as Myrtle; "Pleasure Cruise" (1933) as Mrs. Signus; "The Invisible Man" (1933) with Claude Rains, as Jenny Hall; "Mary Stevens, M.D." (1933) as Mrs. Arnell Simmons; "Orient Express" (1934) as Mrs. Peters; "The Poor Rich" (1934) as Lady Fetherstone; "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (1934) as Wilson; "All Men Are Enemies" (1934) as Annie; "Stingaree" (1934) as Annie; "Chained" (1934) as Amy, Diane's Maid; "The Perfect Gentleman" (1935) as Harriet; "Father Brown, Detective" (1935) as Mrs. Boggs; "David Copperfield" (1935) as Mrs. Gummidge; "The Informer" (1935) with Victor McLaglen, as Mrs. McPhillip; "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) as Minnie; "Rose-Marie" (1936) as Anna; "Lloyds of London" (1936) as Widow Blake; "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (1936) with Freddie Bartholomew, as Mary; "The Plough and the Stars" (1936) as Maggie Gogan; "Suzy" (1936) as Mrs. Bradley, Suzy's Landlady; "Personal Property" (1937) as Clara; "Call It a Day" (1937) as Mrs. Milson, the Housekeeper; "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) with Errol Flynn, as Bess; "Return of the Frog" (1938) as Mum Oaks; "We Are Not Alone" (1939) as Susan; "All Women Have Secrets" (1939) as Mary; "His Brother's Keeper" (1939) as Eva; "It All Came True" (1940) as Maggie Ryan; "The Sea Hawk" (1940) as Miss Latham; "Lillian Russell" (1940) as Marie; "He Stayed for Breakfast" (1940) as Doreta; "Her First Beau" (1941) as Effie; "Three Girls About Town" (1941) as Maggie O'Callahan; "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) in an uncredited bit part; "The Strawberry Blonde" (1941) as Mrs. Timothy Mulcahey; "Kisses for Breakfast" (1941) as Ellie the Maid; "My Favorite Spy" (1942) as Cora the Maid; "Always in My Heart" (1942) as Angie; "Random Harvest" (1942) as Tobacconist; "Forever and a Day" (1943) as Mrs. Ismay; "Holy Matrimony" (1943) as Mrs. Leek; "This Land is Mine" (1943) as Mrs. Emma Lory; "Government Girl" (1943) as Mrs. Harris; "My Pal Wolf" (1944) as Mrs. Blevin; "The Canterville Ghost" (1944) as Mrs. Umney; "Christmas in Connecticut" (1945) as Norah; "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945) one of my favorite of her roles, as Mrs. Breen; "The Return of Monte Cristo" (1946) as Miss Beedle; "Child of Divorce" (1946) as Nora the Maid; "Of Human Bondage" (1946) as Mrs. Foreman; "Cluny Brown" (1946) as Mrs. Wilson; "Banjo" (1947) as Harriet; "Unexpected Guest" (1947) as Mathilda Hackett; "Lost Honeymoon" (1947) as Mrs. Tubbs; "The Corpse Came C.O.D." (1947) as Nora; "Ivy" (1948) as Mrs. Thrawn; "The Adventures of Don Juan" (1948) with Errol Flynn, as Duenna; "Fighting Father Dunne" (1948) as Miss O'Rourke; "Ha da veni... don Calogero!" (1952) an Italian film, as Perpetua; and "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) as Janet McKenzie, her last film. She also guest starred on an episode of "Philco Television Playhouse" in 1948. She died on February 4, 1959 in New York City, New York of a heart ailment at age 78.

 

May 25, 1974 Donald Crisp, actor and director (Beloved Brat, Dawn Patrol, Sea Hawk), dies at 91

Basil Rathbone:  Born: Johannesburg, South Africa, of British parents, 13 June 1892. Education: Attended Repton School, England. Family: Married 1) Ethel Marian Forman (divorced), one son; 2) the writer Ouida Bergere, late 1920s, daughter: Cynthia.  Died: 21 July 1967.  Captain Blood, Dawn Patrol

Ralph Bellamy, a veteran character actor who appeared in more than 100 movies but who attained his greatest recognition on Broadway as the stricken Franklin D. Roosevelt struggling to walk in "Sunrise at Campobello," died November 29, 1991 at St. Johns Hospital and Health Center in Los Angeles. He was 87 years old.  Ralph Rexford Bellamy was born in Chicago on June 17, 1904.  Among his recent films were "Trading Places" (1983), with Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Don Ameche, and "Pretty Woman" (1990), with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. He also played a canny defense counsel in "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" (1955) and a satanic doctor in "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). In 1987, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with an honorary Oscar for his body of work.  His autobiography, "When the Smoke Hit the Fan," was published in 1979.

Dive Bomber, Footsteps in the Dark

Arthur Kennedy

Born February 17, 1914 in Worcester, Massachusetts
Died January 5, 1990 in  Branford, Connecticut (brain tumor)
They Died With Their Boots On

Van Heflin

Date of Birth

February 10, 1892, Washington, District of Columbia

Date of Death

January 22, 1950, Hollywood, California, USA (liver ailment and viral infection)  Age 57

Birth Name  Rufus Alan MacKahan 
Alan Hale decided on a film career after his attempt at becoming an opera singer didn't pan out. He quickly became much in demand as a supporting actor, starred in several films for Cecil B. DeMille and directed others for him. With the advent of sound Hale played leads in a few films, but soon settled down into a career as one of the busiest character actors in the business. He was one of the featured members of what became known as the "Warner Brothers Stock Co.", a corps of character actors and actresses who appeared in scores of Warner Bros. films of the 1930s and 1940s. Hale's best known role is probably in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), one of several films he made with his friend Errol Flynn, in which he played Little John, a role he played in two other films - Robin Hood (1922) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950).

IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com

Played either a supporting role or a cameo in 13 of his friend and fellow actor Errol Flynn's films. (Adventures of Robin Hood, Dawn Patrol, Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Adventures of Don Juan, Prince and the Pauper, Dodge City, Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, Footsteps in the Dark, Desperate Journey, Gentlemen Jim, Sea Hawk, The Sisters)

He holds the record for appearing as Little John in separate productions: he played the part in Robin Hood (1922), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), filmed just a year before he died.

Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams 

Shelby F. Wooley (Sheb Wooley), actor, singer and musician: born Erick, Oklahoma 10 April 1921; married first Beverly Addison (one daughter), second Linda Dotson (one daughter); died Nashville, Tennessee 16 September 2003

Wooley was born on a farm in Erick, Oklahoma, in 1921. As an adolescent, he roped steers with his brothers and rode in rodeos; the injuries he thus sustained stopped him from active service during the Second World War and instead he worked in a defence plant. In 1950 he was given a role in the western film Rocky Mountain, which starred Errol Flynn. When an attractive girl mistook him for Flynn, he took advantage of the mistake, later admitting, "You can imagine I did some of my best acting that night, although I had a hell of a time with the Australian accent."

With his riding abilities, Wooley was ideal for westerns. He appeared in Distant Drums (1951) with Gary Cooper and was featured in two films about General Custer, Little Big Horn (1951) and Bugles in the Afternoon (1952). In 1952 Wooley played Ben Miller, one of the brothers wanting to gun down Gary Cooper in Fred Zinnemann's epoch-making western High Noon. Other westerns included Johnny Guitar (1953), Man Without a Star (1955) and Rio Bravo (1959), with John Wayne and Dean Martin. He appeared in the film musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and the now legendary Giant (1956), with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean.

In 1958 Wooley became a regular member of the cast of Rawhide, a western television series about a cattle drive, starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. Playing the role of Pete Nolan, Wooley remained with the series for several years, writing some of the later scripts. He recorded an album, Songs from the Days of Rawhide (1961) and, in a similar vein, Tales of How the West Was Won (1963).

In 1969 Wooley wrote the theme music for a new CBS TV country show, Hee Haw, and he performed many times on the programme, either as himself or Ben Colder. He was reunited with Clint Eastwood for a small role in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and also appeared in Starman (1984) with Jeff Bridges and Silverado (1985) with Kevin Kline and John Cleese. He starred alongside Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper in the basketball film Hoosiers (1987), while a film of his song, Purple People Eater, was made in 1988 with Chubby Checker and Little Richard.

 He left instructions that his funeral service should be held at "high noon".

Date of Birth

29 September 1915, Island of Negros, Philippines

Date of Death

30 July 1992, Palm Springs, California, USA (throat cancer)

Birth Name

Ardis Ankerson Gaines

Mini Biography

Brenda wanted to be a film actress, all right; it's just that she didn't want to be Brenda Marshall. Throughout her years in Hollywood, she insisted that her friends and co-workers address her not by her studio-fabricated cognomen, but by her given name of Ardis Anderson Gaines. A Warner Bros. contractee of the early 1940s, Anderson/Marshall did her best work opposite Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk (1940) and Footsteps in the Dark (1941). From 1941 through 1973, Brenda Marshall was married to actor William Holden, a curious union that evidently soured early on (Holden's friends blamed Marshall, and vice versa), and was distinguished by extended separations and numerous extracurricular romances

Reginald Lawrence Knowles (11 November 1911 – 23 December 1995) was an English film actor who renamed himself Patric Knowles, a name which reflects his Irish descent. He appeared in films of the 1930s through the 1970s. He made his film debut in 1933, and played either first or second film leads throughout his career.

In his first American film, Give Me Your Heart (1936), released in Great Britain as Sweet Aloes, Knowles was cast as a titled Englishman of means.

While making The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) at Lone Pine, California, he befriended Errol Flynn, whose acquaintance he had made when both were under contract to Warner Bros. in England. Since that film, in which Knowles played the part of Capt. Perry Vickers, the brother of Flynn's Maj. Geoffrey Vickers, he was cast more frequently as straitlaced characters alongside Flynn's flamboyant ones, notably as Will Scarlet in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). More than two decades after Flynn's death, biographer Charles Higham sullied Flynn's memory by accusing him of having been a fascist sympathizer and Nazi spy. Knowles, who had served in World War II as a flying instructor in the RCAF, came to Flynn's defense, writing Rebuttal for a Friend as an epilogue to Tony Thomas' Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was (Citadel Press, 1990) ISBN 080651180X.

Knowles was a freelance film actor from 1939 until his last film appearance in 1973. In the 1940s, he was known for playing protagonists in a number of horror films, including The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943).

Knowles was also cast as comic foils in a number of comedies such as Abbott and Costello's Who Done It? (1942) and Hit The Ice (1943). He also appeared opposite Jack Kelly in a 1957 episode of the television series Maverick called "The Wrecker", which was based on a Robert Louis Stevenson adventure and co-starred James Garner.

Knowles was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame and wrote a novel called Even Steven (Vantage Press, 1960) ASIN B0006RMC2G. He was cremated. His ashes were either given to a friend or family.

 

Ruth Roman, '50s film actress

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- Ruth Roman, who starred opposite Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn and survived the Andrea Doria wreck at sea, died in her sleep Thursday. She was 75.
In 1956, she and her 3-year-old son were returning from Italy aboard the luxury passenger liner Andrea Doria when it was struck by another ship. More than fifty people died and 760 survived after the ship went down.
The Boston-born actress got her start in community plays at age 9. She attended drama school and later moved to Hollywood.
Roman appeared in some minor films before her big break in Stanley Kramer's 1949 "Champion," which featured Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous boxer. Following the film, Warner Bros. offered Roman a contract and she starred in nine films in less than two years opposite Cooper, Flynn and James Stewart.
Roman also appeared in "Beyond the Forest" with Bette Davis, "Three Secrets" with Patricia Neal and "Mara Maru" with Flynn. Roman appeared in more than 30 movies, most of them in the 1950s, and a number of television shows in the 1960s and 1970s.