Jack Carson

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Jack Carson (* 27. October 1910 in Carman , Manitoba as John Elmer Carson ; † 2. January 1963 in Encino , California ) was a Canadian - American actor .

Life

Jack Carson was born in Carman, Canada to Elmer and Elsa Carson. Not long afterwards, the family moved to Milwaukee , United States, where Jack also attended high school. Carson first discovered his interest in acting while studying at Carleton College . The tall, beefy actor appeared on stage as Hercules in his first play, but he accidentally fell down with a number of props. His friend Dave Willock (1909–1990) saw this involuntarily comical interlude and founded the comedic vaudeville act "Willock and Carson" with him . In 1936 the young actors moved to Hollywood and in 1937 he made his film debut as a guest gas station attendant alongside Henry Fonda in the film Rushed . In his first films in Hollywood he was mostly only given extras , but in the late 1930s he established himself as a successful supporting actor. In addition, he was successful together with Willock on the Bing Crosby radio program . He had one of his first better roles alongside Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart in the western The Big Bluff .

Jack Carson's specialty were comical supporting roles: He often played good-natured, but joking and not too intelligent or serious characters. In Arsen und Lace Cap (1944), for example, he played an inexperienced policeman who mainly focused on writing a piece while murderous events were happening in front of his nose. Other comedies with Carson included Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith from 1941 and Magic Nights in Rio from 1948, where he played one of his rare leading roles. Carson has been paired with Dennis Morgan as a comedian duo in a series of Warner Bros. films in the - futile - hope of replicating the success of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope . He had one of his more serious roles during this time as an admirer of Joan Crawford in Michael Curtiz's drama Solange ein Herz Beats (1946) .

In the 1950s, he made fewer and fewer films, and instead appeared on Broadway, and especially on emerging television. In 1954, he broke with his screen image and surprised many critics, following an unscrupulous press agent in a new star in the sky of George Cukor embodied. He had one of his last film appearances as the brother of Paul Newman in the drama The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof from 1958.

Carson was married four times, including actresses Kay St. Germain Wells (1941–1950) and Lola Albright (1952–1958). His brother was the actor Robert Carson . Jack Carson died of gastric cancer in 1963 at the age of 52 . He has a star on the Walk of Fame (1560 Vine Street).

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Jack Carson  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://jackcarson.atspace.com/life.html
  2. ↑ http://jackcarson.atspace.com/life.html
personal data
SURNAME Carson, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carson, John Elmer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Carman , Manitoba , Canada
DATE OF DEATH 2nd January 1963
Place of death Encino , California , United States