Featured Character Actors-1930 through 1969

Seldom played a villain. But put his stamp on any role he took and stole most of the scenes he was in with seemingly no effort.

Totally in control...even when his best-laid plans failed. And they often did.And managed to make his roles look like they were written for him..even when they weren't.

He was good when he started (even when chewing tobacco)...and got better as he went.

Someway or another, his characters (ranging from good-guy detective to lowest-of-the-low types), always seemed to have an aura of perfume coming from the screen.

Lean and mean and always seemed to be mad because Shakespeare didn't have a writing credit on the film. But he played it like Shakespeare might have written it.

When he showed up the other actors added him to the avoid scenes with dogs and kids... and Barry Fitzgerald.

So good at what he did, the audience was never sure he was on the side of the angels...or an outright villain, but came away with a fondness for his character no matter what.

Feisty and already mad as hell about something when he showed up, rather it be as an inept gunsel in "The Maltese Falcon",and departed the same way, even when playing a good-guy homesteader in "Shane." Jack Palance may have taken him out (in a scene that should have been in the unforgetable scenes) but Cook left no doubt about how how he felt about it.

Sadistic prison warden, a nasty nazi, a Jewish escapee from a concentration cap, a gay convict, a cunning district attorney and everything in-between, and the actor never showed in any of them but the character was always spot on.

Made a living playing stern-but-loving fathers with nary a mean streak in his body...unless he was in a western that called for junk-yard-dog meaness.

Always seemed to play a character with some authority and not bashful about using it, but could play it for comedy or drama, however it was written. Oh, that's called acting. Whatever it is called, he was very good at it.

He never had to back up to get his check. He gave what he was paid to give...and then some. And gave acting lessons while he was at it.

Give him a throw-away line... and stand back. Nobody better at facing adversity, taking it as a resigned so-what-else-is-new fact of life...figuring things couldn't get worse and moving onward. But you knew he knew it would.

His name gave away the character type he was playing...but he never played it that way. There was always more than appearance would indicate.

When he came into the scene, the other actors just called for their stand-in and went to lunch; Huston stayed there and ate all the scenery in sight.

No one better at quiet heist-planning and quiet debt-collecting. And, also, quietly making extras out of other actors in the scene.

Easily and often (always nearly) underestimated and under-appreciated (which was also nearly always.) Taken for granted because he made it look easy. Check out his bit-part as the Barstow policeman in "Grapes of Wrath."

Won three Oscars, but only one was as good as his Old Man Earp in "My Darling Clementine." Brennan was never accused of under-playing. Some performances might have been better if he pulled it down a tad bit.

From the jungles of Edgar Rice Burroughs through the Kyber Pass and on to the white cliffs of Dover one could feel secure that the sun would never set on the British Empire if Sir C. Aubrey had anything to say about it. Plus, as the unofficial mayor of Hollywood's British colony, one could be sure all the cricket games and polo matches were played by gentleman in a sporting manner.

If one was looking for a press agent, bookie, hoofer,policeman, fight manager or coach with only a slight touch of larceny and a Brooklyn attitude, hire this vaudeville veteran from Iowa.

Have wardrobe and cigarette case and fluent in six languages and will travel. Always Pullman and never passenger class, of course.

Made befuddlement mixed with larceny a genre of his own and was always front and center in every annual "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven" picture of MGM's contract players.

If only a slght touch of prissy was needed for leading man's buddy or the butler that looked down on everybody or a gangster needed an escort for his moll with a guarantee there would be no handky-panky, Horton got the role.

The leader of Warner Bros. Irish Mafia and designated First Sidekick.

The Welshman famous for his bushy beard and eyebrows, who entertained generations with the colourful and eccentric characters he created on screen, from the Arab sheik who supplied Ben-Hur with his racing horses, to the lecherous English squire in Tom Jones, to the art forging French aristocrat in How to Steal a Million.

The sad-faced Scot who created memorable characters as diverse as Ebenezer Scrooge and Miss Fritton, the headmistress of St. Trinian's, with all kinds of colourful characters inbetween.

From fildom's first gangser--Pig Alley---to filmdon's brightest star in the western sky to filmdom's voice of reason.

The journey from the detective's son who didn't know a clue from a horseshoe to Hollywood's Face of Aisa was a long and delightful trip for film adiences.

Okay, white man, I'll play your game but I won't shuffle and I'll get the best lines and look smarter than you as I do it.

Any list of character actors that doesn't include at least two Hungarians is a wasted list.

Always perlexed and puzzled he never failed to answer a question...even if the answer was for a question asked in his previous film.

Hollywood's great Dane that has Oscar's Humanitarian award named for him.

ESB lifetime achievement award for work in the Irish theatre. He lived in Dublin, Ireland, where he died on 12 February 2012 at the age of 82.

For well over a decade Thomas Mitchell was one of the few character actors whose name had added-value on the theatre's marquee.

His high-recognition, box-office value ranked only slightly below that of Walter Brennan and Thomas Mitchell.