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John Hamilton (actor)

American actor (1887–1958) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Hamilton (actor)
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For other American actors, see John F. Hamilton and Big John Hamilton (actor).

John Rummel Hamilton (January 16, 1887 – October 15, 1958) was an American actor who appeared in many movies and television programs, including the role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.

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Biography

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John R. Hamilton was born in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, to John M. Hamilton and his wife Cornelia J. (Hollar) Hamilton. Hamilton was the youngest of four children, and his mother died eight days after his birth. Hamilton grew up in neighboring Southampton Township, Pennsylvania, where his father worked as a store clerk.

Hamilton's father was also appointed Shippensburg's trustee for the State Superintendent of Public Education, allowing Hamilton to attend college at Dickinson College and Shippensburg State Teacher's College. He opted to forgo teaching for a stage career, however.

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John Hamilton (right) in Meet John Doe (1941)

After becoming an actor, he worked in Broadway plays and in touring theatrical companies for many years prior to his 1930 movie debut. He was in the original Broadway company of the 1922 play Seventh Heaven and would appear in the movie remake (Seventh Heaven) in 1937. He featured with Donald Meek in a series of short mysteries based on S.S. Van Dine stories for Warner Brothers. He played various types of characters, but most often figures of authority like judges and lawyers, politicians and commissioners, doctors and military officers. He appeared in more than three hundred movies, movie serials or television programs from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Among other roles, Hamilton appeared as a judge who passes sentence on soon-to-be-racketeer James Cagney for violation of the Volstead Act in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Hamilton also appeared as a police inspector in the John Huston film In This Our Life in 1942, and got several lines as DA Bryan quizzing Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941). He also played Professor Gordon in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) and eventually the Daily Planet newspaper editor Perry White in the 1950s television series Adventures of Superman (1952–1958).[1] After that, he appeared in television commercials for a brand of bifocals termed "Inviso No-Line Glasses."

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Death

John Hamilton died on October 15, 1958, in Hollywood, California, of heart failure at the age of 71.[2] He was survived by a son. He was interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

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References

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