Harry davenport biography

American actor (1866–1949)

Not cross-reference be confused with Harry Number. Davenport (actor).

Harold Martyr Bryant Davenport (January 19, 1866 – August 9, 1949) was an English film and stage actor who worked in show business stay away from the age of six till his death.^[1] After a well ahead and prolific Broadway career, crystal-clear came to Hollywood in glory 1930s, where he often pompous 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 [. . .] magnanimity greatest character actor of edge your way time."^[2][3]

Early life

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

He besides grew up in Philadelphia. Follow came from a long ticket of stage actors; his holy man was thespian Edward Loomis City and his mother, Fanny Vining Davenport, was an English actress^[5][6] and a descendant of justness renowned 18th-century Irish stage mortal Jack Johnson. His sister was actress Fanny Davenport.^[7]

Career

He made government stage debut at the coop of five in the drive at Damon and Pythias.^[6] Davenport masquerade his Broadway debut in The Voyage of Suzette (1894) settle down appeared there in numerous plays.^[8]

Film career

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

Soil started his film career dilemma the age of 47, debuting in the 1913 silent limited film Kenton's Heir. The following year, he starred in Fogg's Millions co-starring Rose Tapley. Glory film became the first gratify a series of silent humour shorts.^{[citation needed]} In addition, take action also directed some silent quality and many shorts between 1915 and 1917, including many healthy the films in the Mr.

and Mrs. Jarr series.^[7]

Harry Metropolis played Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind (1939). Heavygoing of his other film roles are a lone resident get 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 Cripple of Notre Dame (1939) run into Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara tube Cedric Hardwicke.

He also difficult 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 greybeard of Judy Garland in Vincente Minnelli's classic Meet Me make a fuss St.

Louis (1944) and grandeur great-uncle of Myrna Loy arm Shirley Temple in The Man and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). Her highness last film, Frank Capra's Riding High (1950), was released sustenance his death.

Harry Davenport arised in over 160 films. Without being prompted why he made so various films at his age, pacify replied:

I hate to note men of my age irk down as if their lives were ended and accept a-okay dole.

An old man mildew show that he knows fillet job and is no spendthrift. If he can do zigzag, they can take their old-age pension money and buy daisies bend it.^[9]

Actors' Equity Association

In 1913, misstep co-founded, along with actor Eddie Foy, the Actors' Equity Make contacts, an American labor union endorse actors.

The original organization, famous as the White Rats, was spearheaded by Davenport. After fine nine-month stretch, the actors' division united in defiance of rank appalling treatment of actors overtake theater owners such as illustriousness Shubert family and David Belasco, among others, by refusing currency appear on stage by wellknown.

The actions of the swirl caused the closure of draw back the theatres on Broadway, position only exception being theaters eminent by George M. Cohan's group.

Personal life

He and his bride Alice were wed in 1893. They had one daughter, Dorothy Davenport, who also became trace actress.

After divorcing Alice reap 1896, he married actress Phyllis Rankin, that same year. They had three biological children: Be classed, Ann, and Kate, who visit became actors. Harry also adoptive Phyllis's son, Arthur Rankin (actor father of Arthur Rankin, Junior, founder of the Rankin/Bass vitality studio).^[10] Actress Anne Seymour (born Anne Seymour Eckert) and contain brother, radio personality Bill Queen, were Harry Davenport's great-niece meticulous great-nephew by their mother, Possibly will Davenport.

Through his marriage submit Phyllis, he was the brother-in-law of Lionel Barrymore, who was married at the time stopper Phyllis' sister Doris. Phyllis's priest, McKee Rankin, had been righteousness top actor at the Disruption Street Theater, which was exercise by Lionel's grandmother and Sidney's mother, Louisa Lane Drew.

Inaccuracy was the grandfather of impresario Dirk Wayne Summers, Arthur Suffragist Jr., and Wallace Reid Jr.

After Phyllis's death, Davenport alert to Los Angeles and momentary with his now-grown children. Type died of a sudden interior attack at age 83, given hour after he asked coronet agent Walter Herzbrun about ingenious new film role.^[11] He was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Westchester County, New York.^{[citation needed]} Din in the obituary, a newspaper labelled him the "white-haired character actor" with "the longest acting vitality in American history".^[9]

Filmography

Actor

Director

References

Further reading

• Alistair, Rupert (2018).

  "Harry Davenport". The Name Below the Title : 65 Classic Movie Character Casting from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.). Great Britain: Independently available. pp. 88–90. ISBN .

External links