J. Pat O'Malley was in everything

It should be a household name. At least in any house that had a TV in the early days of television. I am referring to J. Pat O'Malley (1904 - 1985). His face and voice are instantly recognizable, as are so many other Bit Actors.

Before TV and after some small movie roles, his first major role in a feature film was Lassie Come Home (1944), and it was nice to see he also appeared in "Lassie" on TV in the late 1950's. Since many classic film buffs are in the baby boomer generation, you will recognize O'Malley in many Walt Disney productions. His first was The Wind in the Willows (1949) and the same year he voiced a part in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad with a cast that including Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone and Eric Blore.

J. Pat started acting on television in 1950 according to IMDb. After reading his filmography (or videography if you prefer) it may be easier to list all the TV shows he was NOT in! Let's start with his Disney work, and I bet you have seen most of these. Remember, Movies are in BOLD and "TV work" has "Quotes."

• Alice in Wonderland (1951) where he voiced Dee and Dum, among others.
• "The Adventures of Spin and Marty" was shown on Walt's television show "The Mickey Mouse Club" starting in 1955. I loved that series! 
• "The Swamp Fox" series started in 1959 on "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color". I only had a black and white TV, but I still watched it (at 9 years old). Swamp Fox starred funny man Leslie Nielsen (1926 - 2010), before he found out he was a comedian. 
• Goliath II (1960) a 15 minute cartoon about a 6" tall elephant. 
• 101 Dalmatians (1961). Pop quiz - Who played/voiced the original Cruella De Vil in this movie? Yep, it was Betty Lou Gerson (1914 - 1999), who also appeared in The Fly (1958) with Vincent Price.
• The Saga of Windwagon Smith (1961) another short, but this one included Rex Allen and The Sons of the Pioneers. I wonder if Roy Rogers was still singing?
• Son of Flubber (1963) in a small, uncredited role as a sign painter.
• Mary Poppins (1964) in at least eight parts. I'll have to watch it again to find him.
• The Jungle Book (1967) voicing Col. Hathi the Elephant.
• Robin Hood (1973) as Otto.

O'Malley also worked for other studios. Here are just some of his better films.

The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) starring Glenn Ford.
Courage of Black Beauty (1956) was the second Black Beauty film. This one starred Johnny Crawford who went on to co-star in "The Rifleman." The first was in 1946 with Mona Freeman.
The Long, Hot Summer (1958) starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

In 1961 J. Pat stars in Blueprint for Robbery, a comedy about an armored car robbery in Boston. And there were more films, but not much of note. He appeared in Hello Dolly! (1969) but he was only a policeman in the park. It seems like he was stuck in his character actor mode. He is so recognizable when he is on screen, that he must have had to keep to smaller roles in bigger films.

By far, O'Malley made his mark on the small screen. Take a minute to glance at the (more or less) complete list on IMDb. I guarantee that your favorite TV show had J. Pat in it at least once. He was the uncle, the grandfather, the doc, or just a shopkeeper. And not just in sit-coms. He was in every genre you can think of, from westerns to "The Twilight Zone."

J. Pat O'Malley fits right in with Bit Actor heavyweights like Parley Baer and Henry Jones. You gotta love all they have given us.

Thurl Ravenscroft, Dramatic Basso Profondo

I am always fascinated by a good voice.  Some of my all time favs in the movies are the great voices of Basil Rathbone (1892 - 1967) and Andy Devine (1905 - 1977).  Right up there with them is Thurl Ravenscroft (1914 - 2005), a name not well known, but an unmistakable voice that probably hundreds of millions of people have heard, mostly without knowing it.  He is as famous for uncredited roles as Marnie Nixon (b. 1930) is for all of her ghost singing in major musicals.

While not strictly an actor, Thurl was a singer and voice artist in more than 50 titles from 1940 to 1998.  Most frequently he worked for Walt Disney...in animated films and shorts, and also as a voice heard at the Disney theme parks. 

Some of his early work was in Looney Tunes, working with Mel Blanc (1908 - 1989).  By the way, Blanc has over 1,000 titles listed on IMDb!  Thurl's first live action film was a comedy called Puddin' Head (1941) starring Judy Canova (1913 - 1983) where he was a singer in the Sportsman Quartet.  He also appears in Lost Canyon (9142) with William 'Hopalong Cassidy' Boyd.

In the late 1940s he starts a singing group called The Mellomen.  They worked in films and provided backup for singers as diverse as Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and Arlo Guthrie, not to mention Spike Jones.  You can hear Ravenscroft and The Mellomen in Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953).

In 1954 The Mellomen appear in The Glenn Miller Story with James Stewart.  He was also the singing voice for Stewpot, played by Ken Clark, in South Pacific (1958). 

Back to Disney animated features Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961) and The Sword in the Stone (1963).  Also in 1963 he appears with Elvis in It Happened at the World's Fair.

I am not sure I have heard this, but he is listed as a voice singing in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).  I'll have to dig that one out and listen more closely.  And more Disney features, The AristoCats (1970) and The Many Adventures of Whinnie the Pooh (1977).

So the next time you find yourself at Disneyland or Walt Disney World, listen for Thurl's voice in everything!  The Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, as the lead singer in The Haunted Mansion song Grim, Grinning Ghosts, and calling 'All Aboard' at every train station. 

This time of year, you can't go more than a few feet from a radio without hearing Thurl singing You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch! from the 1966 TV short "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"  And his most famous part, also uncredited, is as Tony the Tiger for all the commercials for Frosted Flakes cereal.  I told you that you knew him!  He was Grrrrreat!

Virginia Davis and Walt Disney

I started thinking about early Walt Disney (1901 - 1966) live action films and took a look at IMDb.  Well, Disney produced over 650 films, mostly shorts and most of the early films were animated.  With no easy way to figure out which were live action, I decided to continue looking at other resources.

On Wikipedia I found that Disney's first successful cartoon series' were the Alice Comedies.  Starting with the 1923 silent short, Alice's Wonderland.  These films included live action and animation.  Alice was originally played by Virginia Davis (1918 - 2009).  Walt himself, and Virginia's mother Margaret Davis also appeared in the film.  Also included in the film is Ub Iwerks (1901 - 1971), the legendary animator of the Disney Studios, and co-creator of Mickey Mouse (b. 1927).

There were about 57 entries in the Alice series. and they were made during Disney's move from Kansas City to California.  Virginia moved with the studio, to help Margaret's ambitious hopes for her daughter.

Virginia worked in 15 of the Alice Comedies, and also in a few more silents with Ronald Coleman (1891 - 1958) and Harry Carey (1878 - 1947).  In 1932 she appears in Three on a Match, with a young Bette Davis (1908 - 1989) and Joan Blondell (1906 - 1979), and also Humphrey Bogart (1899 - 1957).  She plays Blondell's character when she was young. 

Virginia went on to a few more uncredited roles before giving up acting.  Notably, she was in: College Holiday (1936) with Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen; You'll Never Get Rich (1941) starring Fred Astaire (1899 - 1987) the year before he made Holiday Inn; a couple of Betty Grable (1916 - 1973) films; and her final film was The Harvey Girls (1946) starring Judy Garland.

Wikipedia credits her with several films that don't appear in IMDb, and I have no way of checking those listed.  If you see Virginia Davis in Flying Down to Rio (1933), please let me know.

After leaving Hollywood, Virginia eventually started a career as a realtor in the mid-west, and ended up selling homes back in California.  She was later sought out by Disney fans and regained more popularity than she had when she was making films.  That must always be a shock to actors who thought they left their old career in the dust.

She certainly qualifies as a Bit Actress, and I would say a successful one, even with a short career spanning just 18 years and 28 films.  She helped make Walt Disney a household name.