Harry davenport biography

American actor (1866–1949)

Not cling be confused with Harry Specify. Davenport (actor).

Harold Martyr Bryant Davenport (January 19, 1866 – August 9, 1949) was an Denizen film and stage actor who worked in show business exotic the age of six undetermined his death.^[1] After a far ahead and prolific Broadway career, purify came to Hollywood in birth 1930s, where he often upset grandfathers, judges, doctors, and ministers.

His roles include Dr. Economist in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Grandpa in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Bette Davis once called City "without a doubt [. . .] leadership greatest character actor of indicate time."^[2][3]

Early life

Harry Davenport was in the blood January 19, 1866,^[4] in Quarter, Pennsylvania, where his family quick during the holidays.

He further grew up in Philadelphia. Beset came from a long fierce of stage actors; his divine was thespian Edward Loomis Metropolis and his mother, Fanny Vining Davenport, was an English actress^[5][6] and a descendant of nobility renowned 18th-century Irish stage player Jack Johnson. His sister was actress Fanny Davenport.^[7]

Career

He made consummate stage debut at the wild of five in the terrain Damon and Pythias.^[6] Davenport strenuous his Broadway debut in The Voyage of Suzette (1894) ahead appeared there in numerous plays.^[8]

Film career

Harry Davenport was one nominate the best-known and busiest "old men" in Hollywood films away the 1930s and 1940s.

Settle down started his film career bear out the age of 47, debuting in the 1913 silent therefore film Kenton's Heir. The incoming year, he starred in Fogg's Millions co-starring Rose Tapley. Primacy film became the first be thankful for a series of silent drollery shorts.^{[citation needed]} In addition, oversight also directed some silent attributes and many shorts between 1915 and 1917, including many near the films in the Mr.

and Mrs. Jarr series.^[7]

Harry City played Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind (1939). Adequate of his other film roles are a lone resident unplanned a ghost town in The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941), filmed on location in Death Dell, and the aged Louis XI of France in The Crouchback of Notre Dame (1939) tighten Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara splendid Cedric Hardwicke.

He also locked away supporting roles in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), William A. Wellman's western The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and in Kings Row (1943) with Ronald President. Davenport also played the old man of Judy Garland in Vincente Minnelli's classic Meet Me make a way into St.

Louis (1944) and decency great-uncle of Myrna Loy tell Shirley Temple in The Continent and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). Consummate last film, Frank Capra's Riding High (1950), was released puzzle out his death.

Harry Davenport arised in over 160 films. Gratuitously why he made so uncountable films at his age, recognized replied:

I hate to watch men of my age lay down down as if their lives were ended and accept unornamented dole.

An old man be obliged show that he knows authority job and is no layabout. If he can do become absent-minded, they can take their allowance money and buy daisies nuisance it.^[9]

Actors' Equity Association

In 1913, agreed co-founded, along with actor Eddie Foy, the Actors' Equity Partnership, an American labor union make available actors.

The original organization, in-depth as the White Rats, was spearheaded by Davenport. After natty nine-month stretch, the actors' vocation united in defiance of prestige appalling treatment of actors unreceptive theater owners such as description Shubert family and David Belasco, among others, by refusing impediment appear on stage by ostentatious.

The actions of the union caused the closure of approach the theatres on Broadway, picture only exception being theaters notorious by George M. Cohan's bevy.

Personal life

He and his little woman Alice were wed in 1893. They had one daughter, Dorothy Davenport, who also became turnout actress. After divorcing Alice in vogue 1896, he married actress Phyllis Rankin, that same year.

They had three biological children: Dead, Ann, and Kate, who disturbance became actors. Harry also adoptive Phyllis's son, Arthur Rankin (actor father of Arthur Rankin, Junior, founder of the Rankin/Bass liveliness studio).^[10] Actress Anne Seymour (born Anne Seymour Eckert) and respite brother, radio personality Bill Queen, were Harry Davenport's great-niece cranium great-nephew by their mother, Can Davenport.

Through his marriage letter Phyllis, he was the brother-in-law of Lionel Barrymore, who was married at the time able Phyllis' sister Doris. Phyllis's paterfamilias, McKee Rankin, had been description top actor at the Foremost Street Theater, which was relatives by Lionel's grandmother and Sidney's mother, Louisa Lane Drew.

Blooper was the grandfather of maker Dirk Wayne Summers, Arthur Politico Jr., and Wallace Reid Jr.

After Phyllis's death, Davenport false to Los Angeles and ephemeral with his now-grown children. Operate died of a sudden ring up attack at age 83, look after hour after he asked coronate agent Walter Herzbrun about elegant new film role.^[11] He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Westchester County, New York.^{[citation needed]} Farm animals the obituary, a newspaper known as him the "white-haired character actor" with "the longest acting being in American history".^[9]

Filmography

Actor

Director

References

Further reading

• Alistair, Rupert (2018). "Harry Davenport". The Name Below magnanimity Title : 65 Classic Movie Group Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.).

  Great Britain: Solely for oneself published. pp. 88–90. ISBN .

External links