Edward Everett Horton
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.
Known for
The Bullwinkle Show
Fractured Fairy Tales Narrator (voice)
Batman
Chief Screaming Chicken
Matinee Theater
Love, American Style
Elmo
December Bride
The Philco Television Playhouse
I Love Lucy
Mr. Ritter
F Troop
The Colgate Comedy Hour
Self
The Steve Allen Show
Self - Guest
The Name of the Game
Philip Armistead
Burke's Law
Grover Leander Smith
Burke's Law
Wilbur Starlington
Dennis the Menace
Uncle Ned Matthews
Nanny and the Professor
The George Gobel Show
Self
Little Tough Guys in Society
Oliver
$10 Raise
Hubert T. Wilkins
Holiday
Nick Potter
Holiday
Nick Potter
Ziegfeld Girl
Noble Sage
Lonely Wives
Richard 'Dickie' Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
Saints and Sinners
Mr. Hollister
Fractured Fairy Tales
Narrator (voice)
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
Fractured Fairy Tales Narrator (voice)
Lost Horizon
Alexander P. " Lovey " Lovett
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Mr. Dinckler
Smart Woman
Billy Ross
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
Self (archive footage)
La Bohème
Benoit - Janitor
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
The Lux Show
Self
The Cara Williams Show
Hearts Divided
John
Things You Never See on the Screen
Self
Hitting a New High
Lucius B. Blynn
The Man in the Mirror
Jeremy Dilke
Sex and the Single Girl
The Chief
Design for Living
Max Plunkett
Weekend for Three
Fred Stonebraker
Arsenic and Old Lace
Mr. Witherspoon
The Singing Kid
Davenport Rogers
Cold Turkey
Hiram C. Grayson
The Man Who Fights Alone
Bob Alten
Behind the Counter
Eddie Baxter
The Front Page
Bensinger
General Electric Theater
Mr. Parkinson
Top Hat
Horace Hardwick
The Terror
Ferdinand Fane
The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show
Storyteller (voice)
Bluebeard's 8th Wife
Marquis De Loiselle
Vacation Waves
Eddie Davis
Oh, Doctor
Edward J. Billop
Pocketful of Miracles
Hudgins
In Caliente
Harold Brandon
Max Liebman Presents
The Way to Love
Professor Gaston Bibi
The Perils of Pauline
Caspar Coleman
Trouble in Paradise
François Filiba
To the Ladies
Leonard Beebe
College Swing
Hubert Dash
That's Right – You're Wrong
Tom Village
Reaching for the Moon
Roger, the Valet
Alice in Wonderland
Mad Hatter
The Merry Widow
Ambassador Popoff
2000 Years Later
Evermore
Down to Earth
Messenger 7013
Forever and a Day
Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
Going Highbrow
Augie Winterspoon
Call Again
Eddie
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Messenger 7013
The Perfect Specimen
Mr. Grattan
The Great Garrick
Tubby
Lady on a Train
Mr. Haskell
The Gay Divorcee
Egbert Fitzgerald
Thank Your Lucky Stars
Farnsworth
Wide Open
Simon Haldane
Angel
Graham
But the Flesh Is Weak
Sir George Kelvin
Smarty
Vernon
The Story of Mankind
Sir Walter Raleigh
The Magnificent Dope
Horace Hunter
The Devil Is a Woman
Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
Shall We Dance
Jeffrey Baird
The Night Is Young
Baron Szereny
Once a Gentleman
Oliver
The Body Disappears
Professor Shotesbury
Success at Any Price
Harry Fisher
Her Husband's Affairs
J.B. Cruikshank
Little Big Shot
Mortimer Thompson
Poker Faces
Jimmy Whitmore
The Whole Town's Talking
Chester Binney
Ruggles of Red Gap
Ruggles
Summer Storm
Count "Piggy" Volsky
Paris Honeymoon
Ernest Figg
The Poor Rich
Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
Springtime in the Rockies
McTavish
Sunny
Henry Bates
The Gang's All Here
Peyton Potter
Bachelor Daddy
Joseph Smith
The Gang's All Here
Treadwell
Roar of the Dragon
Busby
The Nutcracker
Horatio Slipaway
San Diego I Love You
Philip McCooley
Danger – Love at Work
Howard Rogers
His Night Out
Homer B. Bitts
The King and the Chorus Girl
Count Humbert Evel Bruger
All the King's Horses
Count Josef 'Peppi' von Schlapstaat
Steppin' in Society
Judge Avery Webster
Faithful in My Fashion
Hiram Dilworthy
Horse Shy
Eddie Hamilton
The Ghost Goes Wild
Eric
Brazil
Everett St. John Everett
Beggar on Horseback
Neil McRae
Cinderella Jones
Keating
Scrambled Weddings
Eddie Howe
A Bedtime Story
Victor Dubois
Earl Carroll Sketchbook
Dr. Milo Edwards
Let's Make a Million
Harrison Gentry
Kiss and Make-Up
Marcel Caron
The Age for Love
Horace Keats
Sing and Like It
Adam Frink - Producer
Kiss Me Again
Rene
You're the One
Death Valley Joe Frink
Easy to Love
Eric
Ladies Should Listen
Paul Vernet
Her Primitive Man
Orrin
The Hottentot
Sam Harrington
Wild Money
P.E. Dodd
Nobody's Fool
Will Wright
Your Uncle Dudley
Dudley Dixon
Saturday Spectacular: Manhattan Tower
Noah
It's a Boy
Dudley Leake
Three Men on a Horse
Mr. Carver
Six Cylinder Love
Monty Winston
The Sap
The Sap, Bill Small
Dad's Choice
Eddie
The Town Went Wild
Everett Conway
Find the King
Edward Fairchild
I Married an Angel
Peter
Taxi! Taxi!
Peter Whitby
Helen's Babies
Uncle Harry
No Publicity
Eddie Howard
Flapper Wives
Vincent Platt
Sonny Boy
Crandall Thorpe
The Private Secretary
Rev. Robert Spalding
The Wonderful World of Trains
Professor Hotbox
The Ladder Jinx
Arthur Barnes
Her Master's Voice
Ned Farrar
Ask Dad
Dad
Soldiers of the King
Sebastian Marvello
One Got Fat
Narrator (voice)
Too Much Business
John Henry Jackson
Try and Get It
Glenn Collins
The Aviator
Robert Street
The Great Junction Hotel
The Groom
The Right Bed
Bobby Kent
Take the Heir
Smithers
Uncertain Lady
Elliot Crane
A Front Page Story
Rodney Marvin
The Mike Douglas Show
Self
The Emperor's Oblong Pancake
Narrator
The Merv Griffin Show
Self
The Unenchanted Princess
Narrator
The Ed Sullivan Show
Self