Frankie Darro

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Frankie Darro (born December 22, 1917 in Chicago , Illinois , † December 25, 1976 in Huntington Beach , California ; actually Frank Johnson Jr. ) was an American film actor .

Life

Frankie Darro was born in Chicago in 1917 to Frank and Ada Johnson (née Seigest). Through his parents, who performed as "The Flying Johnsons" on the trapeze in the circus, Darro got into show business at an early age. At the age of six he took part in his first film. This was followed by a series of silent films such as Little Mickey Grogan (1927) and The Circus Kid (1928), with which he became a child star. Due to his small stature and his youthful appearance, the actor, who is only 1.60 meters tall, was cast as a teenager with over 20. He was often seen as a jockey , for example. B. The Marx Brothers: A Day at the Races ( A Day at the Races , 1937). Mostly, however, he played boys who got on the wrong track, such as B. in the B-movie Juvenile Court (1938), where he played the leader of a gang and the brother of Rita Hayworth . Characteristic for this was his always hoarse voice, which was also used in a speaking role in Walt Disney's cartoon Pinocchio in 1940 .

As he got older, Darro received only a few offers, which is why he had to stay afloat with small roles in inferior productions during the 1940s and worked as a stunt double at the end of the decade. In the 1950s he only worked sporadically in film productions. B. as the robot Robby in the science fiction film Alarm im Weltall ( Forbidden Planet , 1956) or as a slave in Cecil B. DeMille's monumental epic The Ten Commandments ( The Ten Commandments , 1956). By 1975, however, he was seen several times in US television series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents , Perry Mason , The Addams Family and Batman .

He was divorced from his first wife Aloha Wray in 1941. He had a daughter, Darlene, with his second wife, Betty, who filed for divorce in 1951. Frankie Darro died of a heart attack in 1976 at the age of 59 while visiting friends in Huntington Beach, California. Its ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • John Gloske: Tough Kid. The Life and Films of Frankie Darro . Lulu.com, 2008, ISBN 0-557-00381-4 , 220 pp.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Darro, Frankie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johnson, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1976
Place of death Huntington Beach , California