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Edward Everett Horton
American character actor (1886–1970) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Edward Everett Horton, Jr. (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor and comedian.[1] He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons.
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Early life
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Horton was born March 18, 1886, on Long Island to Edward Everett Horton, a typesetter / compositor in the press room for The New York Times, and his wife, Isabella S. (née Diack) Horton.[2] His father was of English and German ancestry, and his mother was born in Matanzas Province, Cuba, to George and Mary (née Orr) Diack, natives of Scotland.[3] He first attended the old Boys' High School in Brooklyn. The family then moved to Baltimore, Maryland and he went to The Baltimore City College.[4] He attended in 1902-1904 and later was inducted into the school's alumni/faculty Hall of Fame in 1959.[5]
He was a student at Oberlin College where he majored in German. He was asked to leave after he climbed to the top of a building and, after a crowd gathered, threw off a dummy, making them think he had jumped. Returning to New York City, he attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn for one year, until the school discontinued its arts courses; he moved to Columbia University, "until I got fouled up with The Varsity Show of 1909. This was the first time I had really ever been on the stage ... After that, to put it gently, Columbia and I came to an amicable parting of the ways. They were just as glad to see me go as I was to get out."[6] That concluded Horton's collegiate period.
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Stage and film career
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Horton had begun his stage career at age 20 in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in productions during his brief college experiences, then vaudeville and Broadway productions. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally. "Originally, I went under the name of just Edward Horton. My father said, 'I think you're making a mistake, Edward. Anybody could be Edward Horton, but nobody else could be Edward Everett Horton.' I said, 'I think I like that.'"[7]
In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, where he got his start at the Hollywood Community Theater, founded and managed by Neely Dickson.[8] He began acting in Hollywood films of the growing film community in southern California. His first starring role was in the silent film comedy Too Much Business (1922), and he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical-music composer in the comedy Beggar on Horseback (1925). In 1927–29, he starred in eight two-reel silent comedies produced by Harold Lloyd for Paramount Pictures release. He made the transition to sound films with Educational Pictures in 1929, in a series of sound-comedy playlets. As a stage-trained performer, he found more film work easily and appeared in several Warner Bros. movies, including The Terror (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929).
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Fame as starring actor and character player
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As Horton became known for his performances in movies, he continued to work on the legitimate stage, which he preferred.[9] He appeared with Gavin Gordon in a 1931 production of Private Lives by Noël Coward.[9]
Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the double take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he smiled ingratiatingly and nodded in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask.
Edward Everett 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 remembered, however, for his work in supporting roles. These credits 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), 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 wheelchair-bound character communicated only through facial expressions.
Horton continued to appear in stage productions, often in summer stock. His performance in the play Springtime for Henry became a perennial in summer theaters.[10]
Horton was so prolific he sometimes found himself committed to two projects at the same time. One project would be in progress while the second project suddenly came up sooner than expected, forcing Horton to make other arrangements. In 1953, Horton announced on the ABC-TV game show The Name's the Same that his next picture would be one of the Ma and Pa Kettle comedies. A scheduling conflict compelled Horton to bow out, and his role in Ma and Pa Kettle at Home was played by Alan Mowbray.
In 1960, Horton was approached by his former director Frank Capra to work in the new film Pocketful of Miracles. Horton wanted to rejoin Capra, but had a commitment to finish a stage run of the play Once Upon a Mattress; the show wouldn't be closing for another two weeks. Horton phoned Buster Keaton, who had played the same role in an earlier production, and asked if Keaton could replace him. Keaton finished the play's run, and Horton made the Capra film.
In late 1963 Edward Everett Horton joined the national touring company of the Broadway hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, alongside co-stars Jerry Lester, Arnold Stang, and Erik Rhodes.[11] The show ran eleven months.
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Radio and television
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From 1945 to 1947, Horton hosted radio's Kraft Music Hall. An early television appearance came in the play Sham, shown on The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre on December 13, 1948. During the 1950s, Horton worked primarily in television. One of his best-remembered appearances is in an episode of I Love Lucy, broadcast in 1952, in which he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor. In 1960, he guest-starred on The Real McCoys as J. Luther Medwick, grandfather of the boyfriend of series character Hassie McCoy (Lydia Reed). In the story, Medwick clashes with the equally outspoken Grandpa Amos McCoy (played by Walter Brennan).
Edward Everett Horton remains best known to younger Saturday-morning-television viewers of the "baby boomers" generation as the venerable narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales, satires of famous fairy tales and legends from previous centuries. These were featured on the animated The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (1959–1961),[12] which originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, and became a perennial TV attraction in reruns (on both the ABC and NBC networks, as well as in syndication to local TV stations).
In 1962, Horton portrayed the character Uncle Ned in three episodes of Dennis the Menace. In 1965, he guest-starred in an episode of The Cara Williams Show. He was memorably featured in the Western / U.S. Cavalry spoof F Troop (1965 and 1966) as "Roaring Chicken", medicine man of the neighboring non-hostile but cowardly Hekawi Indian tribe. This series, set after the American Civil War, starred Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Ken Berry as soldiers at fictional Fort Courage. Horton thoroughly enjoyed the premise, as he related to reporter Margaret McManus: "I don't watch much television. I mean, if you have the thing on, you have to get up from your comfortable chair to turn it off. A nuisance. But I'm going to watch F Troop. I'll watch it if it kills me."[13]
Two years later Horton echoed this "funny Indian" role on Batman as "Chief Screaming Chicken", a pawn of guest villain Vincent Price's "Egghead".
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Personal life
Horton never discussed his private life publicly, but in 1968 he granted an interview to writers Bernard Rosenberg and Harry Silverstein in which he reviewed his life and career, punctuated by self-effacing remarks ("Nobody's older than I am. Oh, a few people are, but they are not in circulation").[7] Published in 1970, the interview only skims through his personal relationships. Horton recalled that, rather than dating or nightclubbing, he would invite his female co-stars to attend parties he was throwing. "I never married. However, I have not given up hope. This is Leap Year [1968], you know."[7]
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Death and legacy
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Edward Everett Horton died of cancer on September 29, 1970, at age 84 in the Encino area of Los Angeles. His remains were interred in the Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.[14]
At the time of his death, Horton had lived on the property at 5521 Amestoy Avenue for 45 years, since purchasing the four-acre estate in 1925 that he named Belleigh Acres (pronounced "belly achers").[15] The land contained Horton's own house, adjacent houses for his brother and sister and their respective families, and a guest house.[1] In 1938 F. Scott Fitzgerald rented the guest house from Horton (at $200 monthly), where Fitzgerald wrote his last novel, The Last Tycoon.[15]
In the late 1950s, the state forced Horton to sell half of his property for construction of the Ventura Freeway. Horton's niece, Isabella Horton Grant, was an attorney (later a Superior Court judge) and she negotiated the state's purchase price. Horton insisted that he must not be told how much the state paid him; he wanted to disregard the windfall and remain financially uncertain, so he would have an incentive to keep working as an actor.[16] The construction obliterated the tennis courts, one adjacent house, and the guest house; Horton was left with two acres and two houses, which he shared with his sister and brother. The construction left a short stump of Amestoy Avenue south of Burbank Boulevard. Shortly after his death the City of Los Angeles renamed that portion of the avenue Edward Everett Horton Lane in his honor.[17]
For his contribution to the Hollywood motion picture industry, Horton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard.[18]
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Tribute
British radio DJ and comedian Kenny Everett adopted the last name of Everett in honor of Horton, who was a childhood hero of his.[19]
Filmography
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Partial television credits
Radio appearances
References
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Further reading
External links
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