More Charles Lane

Since I mentioned him yesterday, I started looking at his history in acting.  Charles Lane lived for 102 years, from 1905 to 2007.  He was an actor in film and later TV, for 75 of those years.


He started in 1931 acting in films as a desk clerk, salesman or reporter.  Usual fair for a new actor getting extra work or bit parts at $35 a day.  His face allowed him to create his dour character.  


Here is a quote from IMDb written by Gary Brumburgh that sums it up.  "Glimpsing even a bent smile from this unending sourpuss was extremely rare, unless one perhaps caught him in a moment of insidious glee after carrying out one of his many nefarious schemes. Certainly not a man's man on film or TV by any stretch, Lane was a character's character."  The full biography page can be seen here.

Lane was in four Busby Berkeley films, and TEN Frank Capra films, including some of the best...Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take it with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace, It's a Wonderful Life, and State of the Union.


He must have acted with every big name in the movies, including four films with Jimmy Stewart, and many times with his good friend Lucille Ball.  He was also in three Blondie films with Penny Singleton.  Two are included in the set in the insert link at left.


I think he has made himself well known to baby boomers like me and even a younger crowd because of all of his television work.  It would be difficult to turn on a TV in the fifties and sixties and not see him on a sitcom somewhere!


And he kept on working.  In the seventies he was a regular on "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Bewitched" and "Soap."  And he appeared on other TV hits that decade, "The Rookies," "Rhoda" and "Maude."   In the eighties he was seen on Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War", and on "St. Elsewhere" and "LA Law."  He worked into the eighties and even into this millennium, but he slowed down a bit after he hit 90!


According to his bio page on IMDb he was a wonderful man in real life, and he remained married to his only wife, Ruth Covell, from 1931 until she died in 2002.  He was a class act all his life.

Busby Berkeley

Bit Actor Busby Berkeley was in three films.  Of course, they were really cameo roles for him, since he was also the choreographer for those films, Palmy Days (1931), Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade (1933).

Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the best of the Berkeley films.  He didn't direct, but he was the choreographer.  I own the five DVD set of Berkeley films shown at left, with that one and other great movies.

A young Ginger Rogers has a good supporting part, in her 18th film.  She and Ruby Keeler bring a lot of beauty to this film, and Dick Powell's voice is wonderful in the Dubin and Warren tunes that I think are timeless.  But who else was in it?

At the very bottom of the list on IMDb sits Tammany Young.  The next year he was in It's a Gift with W. C. Fields as his store clerk Emmett, playing with Baby Leroy.  He died in 1936, but he started working in films in 1914 and had 126 roles.

Jane Wyman can be seen in her third movie role as one of the gold diggers.  This was 7 years before she married Ronald Reagan.  He was her third husband and she was only 33 when they married.

Sometimes I see a name and I need to write it down for further research.  This movie has a bit actor named Fred "Snowflake" Toones, who lived from 1906 to 1962 and appeared in 209 movies.  There has to be a story to his life.  It turns out he was in Way Out West in 1937 with Laurel and Hardy, his only film with the great comedy team.

Last, I can't skip Charles Lane and Billy Barty.  Both had long careers as bit actors.  Take a look at Lane's filmography here.

Busby Berkeley did his best to make the great depression a little brighter.