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Edward Everett Horton

Edward Everett Horton

Birthday: 1886-03-18 | Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Edward Everett Horton Jr. (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons. Horton began his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business (1922), but he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in the drama Beggar on Horseback (1925). In the late 1920s, he starred in two-reel silent comedies for Educational Pictures, and made the transition to talking pictures with Educational in 1929. As a stage-trained performer, he found more film work easily, and appeared in some of Warner Bros.' early talkies, including The Terror (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929). Horton initially used his given name, Edward Horton, professionally. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally, reasoning that other actors might be named Edward Horton, but only one named Edward Everett Horton. Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the time-honored double take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he would smile ingratiatingly and nod in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask. Horton starred in many comedy features in the 1930s, usually playing a mousy fellow who put up with domestic or professional problems to a certain point, and then finally asserted himself for a happy ending. He is best known, however, for his work as a character actor in supporting roles. These include The Front Page (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Alice in Wonderland (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934, the first of several Astaire/Rogers films in which Horton appeared), Top Hat (1935), Danger - Love at Work (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), Holiday (1938), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). His last role was in the comedy film Cold Turkey (1971), in which his character communicated only through facial expressions.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1971
Cold Turkey

as    Hiram C. Grayson

1964
Sex and the Single Girl

as    The Chief

1963
One Got Fat

as    Narrator (voice)

1961
Pocketful of Miracles

as    Hudgins

1947
The Ghost Goes Wild

as    Eric

1947
Her Husband's Affairs

as    J.B. Cruikshank

1947
Down to Earth

as    Messenger 7013

1946
Earl Carroll Sketchbook

as    Dr. Milo Edwards

1946
Faithful in My Fashion

as    Hiram Dilworthy

1946
Cinderella Jones

as    Keating

1945
Steppin' in Society

as    Judge Avery Webster

1945
Lady on a Train

as    Mr. Haskell

1944
Brazil

as    Everett St. John Everett

1944
Arsenic and Old Lace

as    Mr. Witherspoon

1943
The Gang's All Here

as    Peyton Potter

1942
The Magnificent Dope

as    Horace Hunter

1942
I Married an Angel

as    Peter

1941
Here Comes Mr. Jordan

as    Messenger 7013

1941
Ziegfeld Girl

as    Noble Sage

1939
Paris Honeymoon

as    Ernest Figg

1938
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

as    Marquis De Loiselle

1938
Holiday

as    Nick Potter

1937
Lost Horizon

as    Alexander P. " Lovey " Lovett

1937
The King and the Chorus Girl

as    Count Humbert Evel Bruger

1937
Angel

as    Graham

1937
Shall We Dance

as    Jeffrey Baird

1937
Hitting a New High

as    Lucius B. Blynn

1937
The Perfect Specimen

as    Mr. Grattan

1937
The Great Garrick

as    Tubby