The Cast Includes...

The phrase above invariably precedes the names of some of my favorite performers from the Golden Age of movies.  But if you've spent any extended time on this blog, you already know my dirty little secret:  I'm queer for character people!  I've submitted postings on  Guy Kibbee, Edna May Oliver, Constance Collier, and my all time favorite personal god/super hero/dream man Franklin Pangborn!

The words 'Character Actor' can be a little misleading to the uninitiated.  One could be tempted to think it means and actor who can effortlessly disappear into a wide variety of characterizations in the way that, say, Meryl Streep does.  Au contraire.  Perhaps 'Personality Actor' would be a more fitting description.  These people had a schtick, a personality type, that they would repeat (to magnificent effect) in picture after picture after picture.

It would also be tempting to think that these types died with black and white film and the studio system.  Not true.  While you don't see the Margaret Dumont's and the Edward Everett Horton's in movies much anymore, they aren't gone.  They're given TV series'.  Think Paul Lynde, Roseanne Barr, Fran Drescher, Jerry Seinfeld.  You know, Character People!

All that said, it seems like it's time for a new entry, don't you think?

Ladies and Gentlemen, everybody's favorite head waiter/butler/valet:

Eric Blore

Blore (born 1887) had been an insurance agent for two years in his native England when he was bitten with the acting bug in 1908.  With success at home and on tour in Australia, he moved to the New York stage in 1923.  The next 10 years saw a series of performances with terrific reviews.  It was in 1933 that he became a 'made man' in Hollywood (right along with Astaire and Rogers) in a little thing called "Flying Down To Rio".  RKO apparently found Blore to be such an integral part of the Fred & Ginger magic that he played in 5 films with them.

Butling for Warren William in "The Lone Wolf" series.

In the years that followed, he worked at every studio in town doing his thing.  Playing a butler clearly does a fella a lot better financially than being a butler.  I found a 1937 newspaper article that listed a judges ruling of $150 per week in alimony Blore was to pay his ex (that's $2300 in today's dollars!).  But then he was never your average butler.  He was efficient, he had answers when his employers didn't, he was cute, and there was something just a little naughty in there too.  In his last teaming with Astaire (The Sky's The Limit, 1943) he even says, "If I were not such a gentleman's gentleman, I could be such a cad's cad".

The gift to comedy that he was, it's only fitting that his end was a bit screwball.  In 1959, legendary critic Kenneth Tynan referred, in a New Yorker article, to 'the late Eric Blore'.  When the infuriated lawyer of the very much alive Blore demanded a retraction and apology, Tynan's editor frostily informed his writer that it would be the first retraction in the history of the magazine.  The chastised Tynan prepared his mea culpa, the issue was put to bed, printed and delivered.  On the newsstands the next morning was New Yorker magazine apologizing to the actor, next to the morning edition of the newspaper with the obituary for character actor Eric Blore, who passed away the night before!

Just Another Friday In My Neighborhood.

Ok, I'll be the first one to admit that living in Hollywood is often...different than life in other places.  I have examples of this:

Example A.  One day, while driving down Santa Monica Blvd., approaching Highland Ave., ahead of me I spied what appeared to be road kill.  Some poor squirrel, possum or cat had met an untimely fate.  It wasn't until I was practically upon it that I was able to discern -- it was a wig.

Alright, maybe that wasn't a definitive example, but it was funny.

Example B.  Until as recently as a couple of weeks ago when they were banned for unsavory behavior, it was a constant fixture here in Hollywood to see men and women dressed in character trolling the sidewalk in front of the Kodak and Chinese Theaters posing in photographs with tourists for the consideration of cash tips.  Therefore, I was never surprised to see Charlie Chaplin or Captain Jack Sparrow or Wonder Woman strolling up Vine St. at around 9 am in the mornings, wearing their ipods and carrying their Starbucks coffee on their way to 'work'.

This brings us to Friday.  In the morning I ran over to the historic Farmers Market to hang out with some friends over coffee and fresh danish.  I needed to be back home by 11:30.  My dear friend of nearly 30 years, George, is visiting from DC and I was taking him for a tour of The Sunset Gower Lot (the original Columbia studios).  At the market, I asked my friend Travis if he would like to come over to the house and meet George and he said he'd love to.  So in true LA fashion, by 11:15 there were three of us all headed to my house; in three separate cars.  I arrived first to discover this parked in front of my house:

Just kidding.  It was this:

Still kidding.  It was this:

Not kidding.

 A 1911 Willys-Overland!

As I was going sightseeing, I had my camera in my bag and started snapping pictures.

By now, both George and Travis had arrived.  I made a hasty and distracted introduction and soon they had there iphones out, taking pictures.  People walking down the street had stopped and there was now a small crowd gathered, taking in the magnificence of this antique beauty.  I ran to my next door neighbors house to tell him about it, and it turns out he had a visitor who was the owner of the car.  It also turns out that this is one in a collection of 11 classic autos the man owns!  It further turns out that he was nice enough to offer to take a picture of me sitting in the car!

Me, pretending to drive the 1911 Willys-Overland.

It was all very exciting and the three of us retired to the house for a much needed cup of coffee. 

Now if you think that arriving home to find a 1911 Willys-Overland parked in front of my house is the conclusion of my example on how life in Hollywood is different than other places that I've lived, hang on Bosco the story's not done yet.  Not...quite...yet.  About 10 minutes into our coffee, George looked out the window and exclaimed, "Jesus Christ, it's Mary Poppins!"  Cameras and iphones in hand, back outside we went.  An attractive English woman in, what appeared to be, her early forties who lives around the corner was walking by and spied the car.  Well knowing that she had just the outfit for the moment, and obviously not being a gal to turn down an opportunity, she ran home, changed clothes, grabbed a friend with a camera, came back, hunted down the cars owner and asked permission for an impromptu photo shoot, which was granted.

The rest of the day was spent with the usual, boring and mundane - looking at Harry Cohn's office and Rita Hayworth's dressing room...

Kibbee In Bits

One of my very favorites members of the venerable Warner Bros. stock company of players would, without a doubt be Mr. Guy Bridges Kibbee.  He could play whatever you wanted:  funny, serious, drunk, befuddled, self important, rich, poor,  or adorable sugar daddy.  He played in everything from rags to white tie, and with a range like this, I've never seen him hit a false note.

In "Gold Diggers of 1933" he does 'old Boston money' so perfectly, that it's hard to imagine he was born (1882) in El Paso, Texas.  When only 13, the bug had bitten so deeply that he left home in pursuit of a life on the stage.  While dreaming the ultimate actor dream of Broadway, he earned his chops performing on Mississippi Riverboats and Vaudeville runs.  Sometime after the turn of the century, he got himself to New York at long last, where Broadway was no longer an ephemeral dream; it  was a street! 

For the next 20-25 years (an entire career span for many) he was cast in Broadway shows  --  after they left Broadway.  Touring productions.  Back on the road.  Time and again over these years, he would go back at the end of a tour and hover around Broadway, hoping.  But the money would always run out and he'd have to go back out on the road.

Finally the Gods of The Great White Way, gave him the once over and he was cast in "Torch Song".  The role of Cass Wheeler was 10th down on the cast list, but it was at the 1100 seat Plymouth Theater, ON BROADWAY.  So on the night of August 27, 1930, 48 year old Guy Kibbee walked on to his first Broadway stage and made a noise that went from New York to California and back again.  Seemingly before he could get the grease paint wiped off on opening night, Hollywood started calling.  Kibbee couldn't have been less interested.  He was quickly establishing himself exactly where he had always wanted to be.  Well Hollywood doesn't recognize "no" when it wants something and the calls and offers became ever more insistent.

Kibbee had cause to reconsider when his second New York show, "Marseilles",  closed after sixteen performances.  Why not take a little air trip to California and make a picture, the money was good and it might be fun.  It would be years before he ever used that return ticket.  He came to Hollywood at the beginning of  '31 and hit the ground running.  He did pictures for Paramount, Warners and MGM, and five months later, on May 16, 1931 he signed with Warner Bros.

He couldn't possibly have time to get homesick as Warners wasted no time in getting their moneys' worth out of him.  In just 18 months, (by the end of '32)  Guy had appeared in 20 titles released by the company.  In fact IMDB lists 111 film credits for him the last being in 1948, when he moved, finally, back to New York.  Between '48 and '50 there were numerous television appearances.

But the tremors were already starting to be quite visible and the the acting work stopped.  Parkinson's was the verdict.  By the end of 1953, completely in the grip of his disease, he spent over nine months in a private sanitarium in Rye, NY.

On September 20, 1954, penniless (his only income was Social Security) he arrived at
The Percy Williams Home for Sick and Needy Actors in East Islip NY.  "I've come to the bottom of the barrel", he told the admissions officer.

Now here's what I don't understand:  according to various sites that I researched Guy was wed from 1918 to 1923 to a Helen Shea.  That marriage produced four children.  And from 1925 until his death he was wedded to Esther Reed with whom he had three more children.  Where were these people?  Where was his Hollywood community?  Jack Warner?  The ever-odious Walter Winchell had the callousness to blurb in an Oct. '54 column, "Guy Kibbee is watching the parade go by at a nursing home."

Obviously there is more to the story.  I don't know, maybe he was a horrible man or a drunkard, but it just breaks my heart to think that after bringing so much joy for so many years he would end up this way.

During his stay at the Percy Williams home he was often incoherent and had little interest in the things around him, the exception being when one of his old movies played on TV, he would alertly watch them, laughing and comment that they were "kinda funny."  He passed away on May 24, 1956.

Whaddya Say We Talk Edna May...

With a face like a shoebox, Edna May Oliver was another one of those glorious character people from films of the thirties with a patented bit.  She was typically the gruff, sharp tongued spinster or widowed aunt.  Queen of the 'take', she had two facial reactions, shock and withering disapproval.

Born in 1883 as Edna May Nutter (who names their kid Edna, anyhow?) in Malden, Mass., she passed away on her 59th birthday in 1942.  She was also a descendent of John Quincy Adams.  Before film success, she'd made it on Broadway for quite a few years including creating the roll of Parthy in "Show Boat".  She turned down the film version of "Show Boat" in order to play Nurse in MGM's star spectacle of "Romeo and Juliet", in which she was wonderful.  She was also given a much deserved Oscar nomination for her performance in 1939's "Drums Along The Mohawk".

My favorite Oliver performance ironically didn't include Edna at all!  The 1940 Warner Bros. cartoon, "The Hardship Of Miles Standish" has Oliver's 'image' as Priscilla Mullens (voiced perfectly by Sara Berner), with Hugh Herbert's (I'm sure I'll get around to him sometime) image as Miles and Elmer Fudd as John Alden.

Made in the days of sterotypes, at least the Pilgrims are portrayed as goofy and inept as the Indians.