Edward Everett Horton

Edward Everett Horton
Horton in 1941
Born	Edward Everett Horton Jr. (1886-03-18)March 18, 1886 New York City, U.S.
Died	September 29, 1970(1970-09-29) (aged 84) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California
Alma mater	Oberlin College (no degree) Brooklyn Polytechnic Columbia University
Occupations	Actor singer dancer
Years active	1906–1970

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.

Early life

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. 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. 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. He attended in 1902-1904 and later was inducted into the school's alumni/faculty Hall of Fame in 1959.

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." That concluded Horton's collegiate period.

Stage and film career

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.'"

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, where he got his start at the Hollywood Community Theater, founded and managed by Neely Dickson. 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).

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.

As Horton became known for his performances in movies, he continued to work on the legitimate stage, which he preferred. He appeared with Gavin Gordon in a 1931 production of Private Lives by Noël Coward.

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 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), Biography of a Bachelor Girl (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.

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.

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. The show ran eleven months.

Radio and television

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).

He remains, however, best known to younger Saturday-morning-television viewers of the "baby boomers" generation (born after World War II era, 1946-1964) as the venerable narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales segments with the retelling of earlier famous fairy tales and legends from previous centuries on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show animation / cartoon program (1959–1961), an American animated / cartoon television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964.

In 1962, he 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 also played occasionally in two memorable TV shows from the 1960s as the medicine man, "Roaring Chicken" of the neighboring non-hostile peace-loving but cowardly Hekawi Indian tribe, decked out in beaded / fringed deerskin native Indian garb, in F Troop (1965-1967). This spoof Western / U.S. Cavalry comedy series set after the American Civil War era also starring troopers Forrest Tucker, Ken Berry and Larry Storch at fictional Fort Courage. He echoed this funny Indian role, portraying a "Chief Screaming Chicken", on the 1966-1968 TV show version of Batman two years later, as a pawn to another guest villain portrayed by Vincent Price's "Egghead".

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"). 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."

Death and legacy

Horton died of cancer on September 29, 1970, at age 84 in the Encino area of Los Angeles, and his remains were interred in the Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

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 which he named Belleigh Acres. The land contained Horton's own house and several adjacent houses for his brother and sister, and their respective families. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Last Tycoon while living in one of the estate's guest houses in 1938.

In the 1950s, the state forced Horton to sell a portion of his property for construction of the Ventura Freeway. The construction left a short stump of Amestoy Avenue south of Burbank Boulevard, and shortly after his death the City of Los Angeles renamed that portion of the avenue Edward Everett Horton Lane in his honor.

British radio DJ and comedian Kenny Everett adopted the last name of Everett in honor of Horton, who was a childhood hero of his.

For his contribution to the Hollywood motion picture industry, Horton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1922	Too Much Business	John Henry Jackson	(film debut)
	The Ladder Jinx	Arthur Barnes
	A Front Page Story	Rodney Marvin
1923	Ruggles of Red Gap	Ruggles	Credited as Edward Horton
	The Vow of Vengeance
	To the Ladies	Leonard Beebe
1924	Flapper Wives	Vincent Platt
	Try and Get It	Glenn Collins
	The Man Who Fights Alone	Bob Alten
	Helen's Babies	Uncle Harry	with Clara Bow and Baby Peggy
1925	Beggar on Horseback	Neil McRae
	Marry Me	John Smith No. 2
	The Business of Love	Edward Burgess
1926	La Bohème	Colline
	The Nutcracker	Horatio Slipaway
	Poker Faces	Jimmy Whitmore
	The Whole Town's Talking	Chester Binney
1927	Taxi! Taxi!	Peter Whitby
	No Publicity	Eddie Howard	silent short
	Find the King	Eddie Fairchild	silent short
1928	Dad's Choice	Eddie	silent short
	Behind the Counter	Eddie Baxter	silent short
	Horse Shy	Eddie Hamilton	silent short
	Scrambled Weddings	Eddie Howe	silent short
	Call Again	Eddie	silent short
	Vacation Waves	Eddie Davis	silent short
	The Terror	Ferdinand Fane
	Miss Information	Representative	Vitaphone sound short
1929	Ask Dad	Dad	sound short
	The Eligible Mr. Bangs	Mr. Bangs	sound short
	The Right Bed	Bobby Kent	sound short
	Trusting Wives		sound short
	Prince Gabby		sound short
	Good Medicine		sound short
	Sonny Boy	Crandall Thorpe
	The Hottentot	Sam Harrington
	The Sap	The Sap
	The Aviator	Robert Steele
1930	Take the Heir	Smithers
	Wide Open	Simon Haldane
	Holiday	Nick Potter
	Once a Gentleman	Oliver
	Reaching for the Moon	Roger - the Valet
1931	Kiss Me Again	René	Alternative title: Toast of the Legion
	Lonely Wives	Richard Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
	The Front Page	Roy V. Bensinger
	Six Cylinder Love	Monty Winston
	Smart Woman	Billy Ross
	The Age for Love	Horace Keats
1932	But the Flesh Is Weak	Sir George Kelvin
	Roar of the Dragon	Busby
	Trouble in Paradise	François Filiba
1933	Soldiers of the King	Sebastian Marvello
	A Bedtime Story	Victor Dubois
	It's a Boy	Dudley Leake
	The Way to Love	Prof. Gaston Bibi
	Design for Living	Max Plunkett
	Alice in Wonderland	The Mad Hatter
1934	Easy to Love	Eric
	The Poor Rich	Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
	Success at Any Price	Fisher
	Uncertain Lady	Elliot Crane
	Sing and Like It	Adam Frink - Producer
	Smarty	Vernon
	Kiss and Make-Up	Marcel Caron
	Ladies Should Listen	Paul Vernet
	The Merry Widow	Ambassador Popoff
	The Gay Divorcee	Egbert Fitzgerald
1935	Biography of a Bachelor Girl	Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
	The Night Is Young	Baron Szereny
	All the King's Horses	Count Josef von Schlapstaat
	The Devil Is a Woman	Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
	$10 Raise	Hubert T. Wilkins	leading role
	In Caliente	Harold Brandon
	Going Highbrow	Augie Winterspoon
	Top Hat	Horace Hardwick
	The Private Secretary	Reverend Robert Spalding
	Little Big Shot	Mortimer
	His Night Out	Homer B. Bitts	leading role
	Your Uncle Dudley	Dudley Dixon	leading role
1936	Her Master's Voice	Ned Farrar	leading role
	The Singing Kid	Davenport Rogers
	Nobody's Fool	Will Wright	leading role
	Hearts Divided	John
	The Man in the Mirror	Jeremy Dilke	dual role, lead
	Let's Make a Million	Harrison Gentry	leading role
1937	Lost Horizon	Alexander P. Lovett
	The King and the Chorus Girl	Count Humbert Evel Bruger
	Oh, Doctor	Edward J. Billop	leading role
	Shall We Dance	Jeffrey Baird
	Wild Money	P.E. Dodd	leading role
	Danger – Love at Work	Howard Rogers
	Angel	Graham
	The Perfect Specimen	Mr. Grattan
	The Great Garrick	Tubby
	Hitting a New High	Lucius B. Blynn
1938	Bluebeard's Eighth Wife	The Marquis De Loiselle
	College Swing	Hubert Dash
	Holiday	Professor Nick Potter
	Little Tough Guys in Society	Oliver
1939	Paris Honeymoon	Ernest Figg
	The Gang's All Here	Treadwell
	That's Right—You're Wrong	Tom Village
1941	You're the One	Death Valley Joe Frink
	Ziegfeld Girl	Noble Sage
	Sunny	Henry Bates
	Bachelor Daddy	Joseph Smith
	Here Comes Mr. Jordan	Messenger 7013
	Week-End for Three	Stonebraker
	The Body Disappears	Professor Shotesbury
1942	The Magnificent Dope	Horace Hunter
	I Married an Angel	Peter
	Springtime in the Rockies	McTavish
1943	Forever and a Day	Sir Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
	Thank Your Lucky Stars	Farnsworth
	The Gang's All Here	Peyton Potter
1944	Her Primitive Man	Orrin
	Summer Storm	Count 'Piggy' Volsky
	Arsenic and Old Lace	Mr. Witherspoon
	San Diego, I Love You	Philip McCooley
	Brazil	Everett St. John Everett
	The Town Went Wild	Everett Conway
1945	Steppin' in Society	Judge Avery Webster
	Lady on a Train	Mr. Haskell
1946	Cinderella Jones	Keating
	Faithful in My Fashion	Hiram Dilworthy
	Earl Carroll Sketchbook	Dr. Milo Edwards
1947	The Ghost Goes Wild	Eric
	Down to Earth	Messenger 7013
	Her Husband's Affairs	J. B. Cruikshank
1955	Max Liebman Presents: The Merry Widow	Baron Zelta	TV movie
1956	Saturday Spectacular: Manhattan Tower	Noah	TV movie
1957	The Story of Mankind	Sir Walter Raleigh
1961	Pocketful of Miracles	Hudgins, butler
1963	One Got Fat	Narrator	short subject
	It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World	Mr. Dinckler
1964	Sex and the Single Girl	The Chief
1967	The Perils of Pauline	Caspar Coleman
1969	2000 Years Later	Evermore
1971	Cold Turkey	Hiram C. Grayson (non-speaking role)	(final film role); released posthumously

Partial television credits

Year	Title	Role	Episode(s)
1949	The Ford Theatre Hour (The Man Who Came to Dinner)	Sheridan Whiteside	1 episode
1952	I Love Lucy	Mr. Ritter	1 episode
1956	General Electric Theater	Mr. Parkinson	1 episode
1957	Playhouse 90	Mr. Carver	1 episode
1959–1964	The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends	Narrator, Fractured Fairy Tales	All episodes
1960	The Real McCoys	J. Luther Medwick	1 episode
1962	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Senator Crabtree	1 episode
1962–1963	Dennis the Menace	Ned Matthews	3 episodes
1963	Our Man Higgins	Rawley	"Who's on First?" with Don Drysdale
1965	Burke's Law	Wilbur Starlington	1 episode
1965	F Troop	Roaring Chicken	6 episodes
1966	Batman	Chief Screaming Chicken	episodes 47 and 48
1969	It Takes a Thief	Lord Pelham-Gifford	1 episode
1970	Nanny and the Professor	Professor Clarendon	1 episode
1971	The Governor & J.J.	Doc Simon	2 episodes

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1952	Musical Comedy Theater	On an Island with You

Listen to

• Interview with Edward Everett Horton (January 8, 1940) Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine

Further reading

• Rosenberg, Bernard, and Silverstein, Harry (1970). "Edward Everett Horton". The Real Tinsel (hardcover) (First ed.). New York: MacMillan. ISBN 978-1199462787.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Alistair, Rupert (2018). "Edward Everett Horton". The Name Below the Title : 65 Classic Movie Character Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.). Great Britain: Independently published. pp. 125–128. ISBN 978-1-7200-3837-5.

External links

Media related to Edward Everett Horton at Wikimedia Commons

• Edward Everett Horton at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edward Everett Horton at IMDb
• Edward Everett Horton at the TCM Movie Database
• Edward Everett Horton at Find a Grave
• Edward Everett Horton at Virtual History