Wilbur Mack

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Wilbur Mack
Wilbur Mack, vaudeville actor (SAYRE 5904).jpg
Mack in 1914
Born
George Frear Runyon

(1873-07-29)July 29, 1873
Binghamton, New York City, U.S.
DiedMarch 13, 1964(1964-03-13) (aged 90)
Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills
OccupationActor
Years active18991962
Spouse(s) Nella Walker
(m. 1910; div. 19??)
Gertrude Purdy

Wilbur Mack (born George Frear Runyon, [1] July 29, 1873 March 13, 1964) was an American film actor and early vaudeville performer from the 1920s through the 1960s. His film acting career began during the silent film era.

Contents

Biography

Mack was born and raised in Binghamton, New York, and began acting professionally when he joined a repertory theatre when he was 16. [2] He found success performing vaudeville with first wife Nella Walker ("Mack and Walker"). The couple divorced not far into the marriage and Walker subsequently found success as a supporting actress in the "talkies." Mack, meantime, found a new partner: Gertrude Purdy, with whom he reprised his popular husband and wife vaudeville routine (this time headlined "Mack and Purdy").[ citation needed ] In addition to performing, Mack wrote dialogue for skits and words and music for songs in their vaudeville shows. [1]

In 1925 Mack entered into a film acting career. His first film appearance was Gold and Grit. [3] With wife Gertrude, he also wrote and performed in a Vitaphone romantic comedy pantomime An Everyday Occurrence (1928).

Mack made a smooth transition to talking films, but despite racking up an impressive number of appearances had less success finding lead or even featured roles. In 1930 he made thirteen films; from 1931 through 1933 he appeared in twenty-four; and from 1934 until 1939, he was cast fifty-five times. However, forty-five of those appearances were uncredited. His most notable credited role during that period was the 1936 crime drama The Crime Patrol, alongside Ray Walker.

Mack's career in subsequent decades was similar to his career up until that point, with moviegoers seeing him play mostly uncredited roles. Of the seventy-six film appearances he made from 1940 to 1949, only seven were credited. He would continue to appear in both films and television throughout the 1950s and into 1962, with his last being an uncredited part in the 1962 movie Who's Got the Action? starring Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Eddie Albert, and Walter Matthau.

Mack was living in Hollywood when he died on March 13, 1964. His remains are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. [4]

Selected filmography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cliff Edwards</span> American musician and actor

Clifton Avon "Cliff" Edwards, nicknamed "Ukulele Ike", was an American musician and actor. He enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop standards and novelty tunes. He had a number one hit with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1929. He also did voices for animated cartoons later in his career, and he is best known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940) and Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Dandy (Jim) Crow in Walt Disney's Dumbo (1941).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisha Cook Jr.</span> American actor (1903–1995)

Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. was an American character actor famed for his work in films noirs. According to Bill Georgaris of TSPDT: They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, Cook appeared in a total of 21 films noir, more than any other actor or actress. He played cheerful, brainy collegiates until he was cast against type as the bug-eyed baby-faced psychopathic killer Wilmer Cook in the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon. He went on to play deceptively mild-mannered villains. Cook's acting career spanned more than 60 years, with roles in productions including The Big Sleep, Shane, The Killing, House on Haunted Hill, and Rosemary's Baby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preston Foster</span> American actor and singer

Preston Stratton Foster, was an American actor of stage, film, radio, and television, whose career spanned nearly four decades. He also had a career as a vocalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Conklin</span> American actor and comedian (1886-1971)

Chester Cooper Conklin was an early American film comedian who started at Keystone Studios as one of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops, often paired with Mack Swain. He appeared in a series of films with Mabel Normand and worked closely with Charlie Chaplin, both in silent and sound films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Mack</span> American actress

Helen Mack was an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in silent films, moving to Broadway plays and touring one of the vaudeville circuits. Her greater success as an actress was as a leading lady in the 1930s. She made the transition to performing on radio and then into writing, directing, and producing shows during the Golden Age of Radio. She later wrote for Broadway, stage and television. Her career spanned the infancy of the motion picture industry, the beginnings of Broadway, the final days of vaudeville, the transition to sound movies, the Golden Age of Radio, and the rise of television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Moran</span> American actress

Pauline Theresa Moran billed as Polly Moran, was an American actress of vaudeville, stage and screen and comedian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardie Albright</span> American actor

Hardie Hunter Albright was an American actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Quillan</span> American actor

Edward Quillan was an American film actor and singer whose career began as a child on the vaudeville stages and silent film and continued through the age of television in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dell Henderson</span> Canadian-American actor, director, and writer

George Delbert "Dell" Henderson was a Canadian-American actor, director, and writer. He began his long and prolific film career in the early days of silent film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Woods (actor)</span> American actor

Harry Lewis Woods was an American film actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell Simpson (actor)</span> American actor (1880–1959)

Russell McCaskill Simpson was an American character actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Murray (American actor)</span> American actor

Charles Albert Murray, was an American film actor of the silent era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roscoe Karns</span> American actor

Roscoe Karns was an American actor who appeared in nearly 150 films between 1915 and 1964. He specialized in cynical, wise-cracking characters, and his rapid-fire delivery enlivened many comedies and crime thrillers in the 1930s and 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nella Walker</span> American actress (1886–1971)

Nella Walker was an American actress and vaudeville performer of the 1920s through the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buddy Roosevelt</span> Actor and stunt man

Buddy Roosevelt was an American film and television actor and stunt performer from Hollywood's early silent film years through the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Wagner</span> American actor

Max Wagner was a Mexican-born American film actor who specialized in playing small parts such as thugs, gangsters, sailors, henchmen, bodyguards, cab drivers and moving men, appearing more than 400 films in his career, most without receiving screen credit. In 1927, he was a leading witness in the well-publicized manslaughter trials of actor Paul Kelly and actress/screenwriter Dorothy Mackaye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard "Skeets" Gallagher</span> American actor (1891–1955)

Richard "Skeets" Gallagher was an American actor. He had blue eyes and his naturally blond hair was tinged with grey from the age of sixteen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Dillaway</span> American actor (1903–1982)

Donald Provost Dillaway was an American stage and film actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Fields (actor)</span> American actor (1883–1941)

Stanley Fields was an American actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert North</span> American film producer

Robert North was an American vaudeville performer who became a success as a stand-up comedian. Later he became a prolific motion picture producer.

References

  1. 1 2 Anthony, Walter (October 7, 1917). "Wilbur Mack to Invade Musical Comedy With His Own Production". San Francisco Chronicle. California, San Francisco. p. 4. Retrieved October 15, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Wilbur Mack almost a shoemaker once". Detroit Free Press. Michigan, Detroit. July 29, 1931. p. 16. Retrieved October 15, 2019 via Newspapers.com.
  3. Katchmer, George A. (2015). A Biographical Dictionary of Silent Film Western Actors and Actresses. McFarland. pp. 225–226. ISBN   9781476609058 . Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  4. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14000 Famous Persons by Scott Wilson