Franklin Pangborn

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Franklin Pangborn (born January 23, 1889 in Newark , New Jersey , † July 20, 1958 in Laguna Beach , California ) was an American actor who had over 200 film appearances between 1926 and 1958 and mainly impersonated comic supporting roles. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

life and career

Against his parents' wishes, Franklin Pangborn began his acting career in the 1900s. In March 1911 he was first seen on Broadway with the play The Triumph of an Empress , where he played in half a dozen plays by 1924. He interrupted his career briefly for use with the US Army in the First World War . He made his film debut in 1926 in the silent film Exit Smiling , and in contrast to many other silent film colleagues, Pangborn made the switch to the sound film at the end of the 1920s without any problems. In the early years of his film career, he often took on supporting roles in short comedies, for example for Mack Sennett , Hal Roach , Universal Pictures , Columbia Pictures and Pathé Exchange . He had his best-known short film appearance in 1933 in the comedy Wild Poses by the Little Rascals , in which, as a hysterical photographer , he wanted to shoot a photo of Spanky McFarland in vain as well as desperately . He also played in feature films, but mostly only played minor supporting roles there until the mid-1930s.

In the mid-1930s, Pangborn's success grew and he became famous as a performer of mostly small, but all the more distinctive and often comical roles. With his high voice and an elegant, somewhat self-important demeanor, he mainly played overly correct, somewhat nervous or squeamish minor characters. He was often seen as an employee, fashion salesman or hotel manager, for example in Vivacious Lady and Sullivan's travels . He played supporting roles in several comedies with WC Fields , for example as the unfortunate bank auditor J. Pinkerton Snoopington in The Bank Detective (1940) and as an incompetent Hollywood producer in Don't Give a Fool a Chance (1941). He also belonged to the "Preston Sturges Company", a group of illustrious character actors who appeared regularly in the films of director Preston Sturges in the 1940s . Pangborn was openly homosexual and, fittingly, many of his film characters were also latently homosexual when this was not yet openly addressed in films. For example, his character in the comedy Mein Mann Godfrey (1936) shyly asks William Powell if he could touch his beard. While a large number of his films have been comedies, he also occasionally starred in dramatic films such as Journey from the Past with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid .

In the 1950s, Pangborn increasingly withdrew from the acting business and only had a few minor film and television appearances, most recently on the Red Skelton Show in the year he died . In total, he made over 230 film and television appearances. He lived with his mother in a house in Laguna Beach for many years . Franklin Pangborn died in 1958 at the age of 69 after cancer surgery. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park , Hollywood Hills .

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the film industry .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Franklin Pangborn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frankin Pangborn at Allmovie
  2. ^ Mann, William J. (October 11, 2001) - Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Viking. P. 133. ISBN 978-0-670-03017-0 .
  3. ↑ Franklin Pangborn's biography
  4. ^ Franklin Pangborn in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved July 2, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Pangborn, Franklin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Newark , New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1958
Place of death Laguna Beach , California