Mickey Daniels

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Mickey Daniels (1922)

Mickey Daniels (* 11. October 1914 in Rock Springs , Wyoming as Richard Daniels Jr. , † 20th August 1970 in San Diego , California ) was an American actor. The freckled, red-haired boy was one of the original members of the Little Rascals .

Life

Mickey Daniels was born as one of ten children of actor Richard Daniels (1864-1939) and his wife Hannah in the US state of Wyoming. His aunt was the silent film star Bebe Daniels , who in turn was married to the actor Ben Lyon . Acting agents discovered Daniels in 1921 at an amateur night at the local theater in his hometown. When film producer Hal Roach was looking for child actors for his newly founded film series The Little Rascals , Daniels was hired for one of the leading roles, also because his family was friends with Roach. Subsequently, the red-haired, freckled Daniels was seen in almost 50 short films by The Little Tramp from 1922 to 1926. He was one of the most important actors in the quickly popular film series and was now earning $ 175 a week, a substantial sum at the time. Mostly used as the somewhat over-the-top leader of the children's group in the films, he often fought for the attention of the beautiful Mary ( Mary Kornman ). In addition to his appearances with the little rascals, he was also seen in the comedies of Charlie Chaplin ( The Pilgrim ) and Harold Lloyd (including skyscrapers! ).

After retiring from the Little Rascals at the age of 12, Daniels played again between 1930 and 1932 on the side of Mary Kornman in The Boy Friends , another short film comedy series by Hal Roach. This was intended as a kind of The Little Rascals for young people, but was less successful. He remained in the film business until the early 1940s and also appeared in vaudeville theaters, but his film appearances quickly became insignificant and he was often not mentioned in the credits. Among other things, he took on minor supporting roles in the films It happened in one night (1934) and The great Ziegfeld (1936), which each received the Oscar for best film of the year. After serving in World War II , he retired from the acting business, in 1946 he made his last of over 100 films.

Daniels then moved into civil engineering , working both inside and outside the United States. In later years Daniels became an alcoholic and most recently worked as a taxi driver in San Diego. He died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 55 in a San Diego hotel . His death went unnoticed in newspapers and was only known to the general public through research twenty years later. At the time of his death, Daniels was divorced with a daughter and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park celebrity cemetery in Glendale .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annette M. D'Agostino: The Harold Lloyd Encyclopedia. McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0-7864-1514-2 , p. 72.
  2. ↑ Mickey Daniels at Find A Grave
personal data
SURNAME Daniels, Mickey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Daniels, Richard Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Rock Springs , Wyoming
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 1970
Place of death San Diego , California