Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini #205:Character Actors of Classic Cinema: (E thru H)
Episode Date: February 28, 2019This week: The man who would be "Sneezy"! Fritz Feld gets "Lost in Space"! Kris Kringle battles giant ants! Dashiell Hammett inspires the Coen Brothers! And Mr. Rogers meets the Wicked Witch of the We...st! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre,
and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions
with the late Ray Ball.
Speaking from the grave.
For a guy who dies every week, he's lively.
Yes!
Pretty lively.
We are here at Earwolf with Verda Rosso.
And when you introduce yourself, I always think, oh, Gilbert Gottfried, not Godfrey.
Oh, yes.
Which I see on social media.
I love Gilbert Gottfried.
He's my favorite comedian.
I love when people come up to me on the street and they'll say, oh, I know you, Arthur Godfrey.
Right.
Famous anti-Semite.
Yeah, you're a Jewish anti-Semite.
Yeah.
Very rare.
Paulie, how are you?
I'm good.
You caught me taking a big drink of water to get ready.
I want to be lubricated.
You're going to do a Danny Thomas spit take?
You've got your own theme music?
We're going to do Gil.
You should get a royalty.
Can I mention that Elizabeth is here?
Yes, Paul's lovely wife is here, Elizabeth.
She's sweet and she's kind.
She's doing the Queen's wave.
She's normal.
She's surprisingly normal and well-adjusted.
I don't know what I mean by that.
I guess what I'm trying to say badly is any woman that would be with any of us is under suspicion.
I would never like to be part of a—
Including my own wife.
Richard Pachter is a fan who sent us this great book.
We did this a couple of weeks ago.
It's called The Versitals.
I found it.
You can actually still buy this sucker.
It's on Amazon.
It was published in 1969.
So what's fun about it is you go through the bios
and half of these people are still alive at its publishing.
They're all dead now.
Pretty much, except
for Norman Lloyd, who's hanging
in at, what, 103?
102 or
something like that. Can you believe
Olivia Haviland is kicking? I know!
The woman's in Gone with the Friggin'
Wind. Yes!
She's still with us. That was the name
of it, Gone with the Friggin' Wind.
I don't want to invite her on the show because she's
litigious.
She just sued somebody.
Richard Pachter sent us this great book of
character actors. You guys know how much we're obsessed
with character actors. Gilbert loves it.
It's his obsession. And we're
going to quiz him on a couple
of these character actors. And Paul
has done the research. What do you think,
Gil? Hours and hours.
I want to see.
I guess I'm supposed to take my phone out then is what that means.
You can take your phone out and do a little research.
Didn't you prep the research beforehand?
I did prep some research.
So what do you need your phone for?
Well, because I forgot what I prepped.
Look, when he has the phone, it takes him a year and a half, so.
Here we go.
Do you know, Gilbert?
And I'm going to jump around, Paul.
Okay.
Well, last time we did A through D.
Yeah.
We did Lionel Atwill.
We did Claude Aikens.
Yes.
We did Margaret Dumont.
And this time, just to give you a hint, and I shouldn't even give you a hint.
Yeah.
We've moved past D.
Ooh.
So do you know what letters would come next?
D?
What group of letters?
So here's some, and I'm not going to go alphabetically because I don't want you to get ahead of me.
Some of these you'll know and will be easy.
Some will be challenging.
I still am kicking myself for not knowing Robert Donat from last week.
Did we do Robert Donat?
Yes.
We didn't do him.
I think.
We gave you Edward Arnold.
Yeah.
Last time.
That one I got.
Yeah.
I got every one of the others.
Leo G. Carroll we gave you.
Yeah.
That's an easy one.
We can't see which one stumped you.
Yeah.
You got Lionel Atwell quickly.
Yeah.
Margaret Dumont was a layup.
That wasn't.
We weren't really even quizzing you.
Yeah.
That was just a hand. Henry Daniel was the one that stumped you. Henry Daniel. Yeah. Margaret Dumont was a layup. That wasn't, we weren't really even quizzing you. Yeah, that was just a hand.
Henry Daniel was the one that stumped you.
Henry Daniel.
Yes.
Yeah, from the Body Snatchers.
That was the one that stumped you.
Yeah.
Otherwise, you were golden.
Yeah.
These might be easier this time.
These might be hard.
Paul, I'm going to jump around.
Okay.
Who is that gentleman?
Oh, Christ.
Wait a minute.
I'm going to give you the second sheet.
I just gave you the one with the writing on it.
Okay.
Let's do this again.
Who is that gentleman?
Oh.
Very famous.
He has an Oscar, in fact.
Ah.
He won his Oscar in 1947 for starring in a movie that I love to talk about on this show.
He was in A Viewman Bondage, Charlie's Aunt,
Two Hitchcock Pictures, Foreign Correspondent,
and The Trouble with Harry,
Lassie Come Home,
Bonzo Goes to College,
a big film.
He won an Oscar in 1947.
He's a Brit.
Very familiar.
Frank has loaded up some quiz music.
I like that, Frank.
That's a nice touch. Very familiar, but okay. I'll loaded up some quiz music. I like that, Frank. That's a nice touch.
Very familiar,
but okay.
I'll give it to you now.
This hint will give it to you.
He won his Oscar
for playing Santa Claus.
Oh,
what the fuck's that guy's name?
Or Kris Kringle,
if you will.
Oh,
oh,
fuck that guy.
Oh,
shit.
Edmund Nguyen.
Edmund Nguyen.
Okay,
we stumped him with the first one, Paul. You got anything juicy on Edmund Nguyen. Edmund Nguyen. Okay, we stumped him with the first one, Paul.
You got anything juicy on Edmund Nguyen?
He was in another movie I bet Gilbert likes.
What's that?
He played the scientist Dr. Harold Medford in Them.
Oh, he's in Them.
How could I not give you that one?
See, and that's a funny thing.
I should have given you that one.
Them is the respected one, and I like the rip-off better.
Tarantula. Tarantula. Tarantula.
That's a fun movie.
See, if I'd said them,
would you have gotten Edmund Nguyen? Oh, maybe.
Maybe then, yeah. You've seen those
Hitchcock pictures. He was in four
Hitchcock pictures. Four? I only wrote two
down. The Skin Game,
Strauss, Great Waltz, Foreign Correspondent,
and The Trouble with Harry.
Look at you. I've been outdone
by Raybone. I've been
Rayboned. Alright, here's
an easy one. Here's a layup for Gilbert.
I like to throw in little easy ones to
encourage him. We don't want to embarrass him.
I'm sorry. I'm just a little disappointed
that we're really just going to let Rayboned
slide by. We're not going to say anything.
Well, we're on limited time here, Frank.
Here we go.
Who's that?
He has, with a quick glimpse, it looks kind of like Fritz Feld.
It is Fritz Feld.
Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah, and he's got his hand by his mouth, too.
Yeah, I picked the one that you would get.
Yeah.
Fritzfeld, I mean, he built a career out of popping.
Can you do it?
Yeah.
Can you do the pop?
Not really.
I can't either.
I can't either.
But he'd do it really loud, and he was always the maitre d'.
Yes.
And it's always like, ah, table for two, and then pop his mouth.
The man had a long career.
He died at 93, and he's in a lot of movies.
He even pops up in an odd couple episodes.
He does.
Yeah.
He was hysterical.
Gary Lewis used him a lot.
He's in The Ladies' Man.
He's in The Patsy.
He's in The Aaron Boy.
Yeah.
Oh, he was hysterical.
Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
The Phantom of the Opera with Claude Rains.
Oh, man.
He's in.
And he had a career well into the 70s.
Sunshine Boys, History of the World in the 80s.
He just found something that worked, and that was it.
Yep, yep, yep.
He was in Bringing Up Baby.
Yes.
That movie fared so badly at the box office that Howard Hawks was fired from his next production.
Insane.
And Howard Hawks is an iconic director. Yeah, exactly.ks was fired from his next production. Insane. And Howard Hawks
is an iconic director.
Yeah, exactly.
He was born in Berlin,
Gilbert.
Yes.
And lived to the age of 93.
Wow.
And worked a very,
very long time,
Fritz Feld.
I believe he has a mention
in the Gilbert documentary.
Yes, yes,
at the end
I talk about Fritz Feld.
I don't know,
maybe you said this
while I was looking
somewhere else here,
but he had a recurring role on Lost in Space. Do you remember who he was? Fritz Feld. I don't know. Maybe you said this while I was looking somewhere else here, but he had a recurring role on Lost in Space.
Do you remember who he was?
Fritz Feld was recurring on Lost in Space?
Recurring role of Zumdisch, manager of the Intergalactic Celestial Department store.
Zumdisch?
He was Zumdisch?
You've been trying to recover who Zumdisch was, I know.
This blows my mind.
Wow.
Paul, that's my favorite tidbit of information this month.
Fantastic work, Raybone.
Zoomdish.
Fantastic.
Okay, here's Fritz Feld.
I had to throw Fritz Feld in there.
Yeah.
I left the book at home, and I called my wife, and I said,
read me everybody in there from E to G.
And my wife started reading them, and when she stopped at Fritz Feld, I said, nah me everybody in there from E to G. And my wife started reading them.
And when she stopped at Fritz Feld, I said, nah, got to put that in there.
That's an homage.
Okay, this is an actor who's in everything.
Who is that?
Oh, Christ.
And he did voices for Walt Disney.
He may have.
He's in a million movies.
Was he the voice of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland?
I don't know.
He had one of those voices.
He had a squeaky voice.
He talked like this.
Yes.
But it was more.
I'm not even doing him well.
I wonder if Steve Stoliar could do him.
He kind of talked like this.
Yes, he had a breathy voice.
More like that.
And I swear he was in a Disney cartoon.
He's the drunk Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street.
The one that's fired immediately.
And Edmund Nguyen gets his opportunity to play Kris Kringle.
Does that help you?
He's in Scared Stiff.
He's in How to Marry a Millionaire.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Born right here in New York City.
He's in
Abbott and Costello meet Boris Karloff,
the killer. The killer Boris Karloff.
My friend Irma. Kiss Me Deadly.
Big movies. Jailhouse Rock.
I mean, he did everything.
God. You know who I'm talking mean, he did everything. God.
You know who I'm talking about, Mr. Raybone?
I think you're talking about Percy Helton.
I'm talking about Percy Helton.
Just talking about Percy Helton.
Oh, wow.
He apparently had ambitions to be a leading man,
and he was in some children's theater,
and they made him shout, and he ruined his voice.
Is that true?
That's what they say.
That's great trivia.
Ruined his voice. Oh, man. He's what they say. That's great trivia. Ruined his voice.
Oh, man.
That's sad.
He became permanently hoarse.
Yes, because he talked like this.
Remember his voice, Gilbert?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's it.
The funny thing is, is it made his career that voice.
My wife was watching White Christmas, and he turns up as one of the conductors on the train.
And I started screaming, Percy Helton from the other room,
and my wife thought I had a grand mal seizure.
I'm positive he did a voice in a Disney.
We'll try to find that out.
I have an actor here in my stack that did a voice in a Disney film.
Not him, but he may have.
Percy Helton did a lot of appearances on some shows produced by Paul Henning.
There you go.
Yeah, he played a lot.
I think he did a lot of TV in the 60s and 70s.
Beverly Hillbillies, Petty Coat Junction, Green Acres.
There you go, Paul Henning shows.
He played like a storekeeper or the general store owner or a bellhop or a train conductor.
He wasn't in Alice in Wonderland?
I don't have it here.
It's possible.
I'll try to find it.
Okay, Gil.
Move.
Voice.
I know I've heard in cartoons.
Moving right along.
So you didn't get the first one.
You got the second one.
Here's another layup for you.
You know who this is.
Who is that lady?
Oh, Margaret Hamilton?
Look at that.
Yeah.
My question with her was, to me,
these are character actors some people have heard of,
some not, but Margaret Hamilton's a star
as far as I'm concerned. Well, she was in that
one iconic film.
She's in that one film, the legendary film.
I had to throw her in there.
And a lesbian. As Bruce
Valanche pointed out, yes, a lesbiterian.
I believe were his exact words
although you look at her and it's not really a surprise
the poor woman she was beloved i heard her whole life she fought against that typecasting
because kids were frightened of her and she loved children and and you know. And that was before The Wizard of Oz. Exactly.
I remember seeing an episode of Mr. Rogers.
Yes, it's a famous episode.
Yeah, he brought her on just to show kids what a nice lady she is. She loved children.
I think she worked as a school teacher or she worked volunteering with children.
Spent all of her adult – born in Cleveland, I think.
Do I have this right, Paul?
Yeah, born in Cleveland. She lived to the
age of 82, but spent her
adult life in New York City.
She worked with Fields in My Little Chickadee.
She's in The Invisible Woman. Do you know
this picture? Universal picture.
Oxbow Incidents.
Capra used her in State of the Union.
She's in Brewster McCloud.
Yeah, I heard.
Which Austin Pendleton was supposed to play.
He was supposed to play Bud Cort's part.
Remember he told us that?
Yes, yes.
He had him on.
Yeah, I heard.
Yeah, everybody loved her.
Yeah, Margaret Hamilton, beloved woman.
She wasn't a mean dyke.
You're fine, you're mean dyke.
How progressive of you.
What do you have on her, Paulie?
Not much more than what she got.
Let's see.
It's funny that she was kindergarten.
On the American Film Institute's list of 100 years greatest heroes and villains, she was number four.
There you go.
Yeah.
I think she was in a Partridge Family episode.
Oh, here's actually a nice quote from the set.
in a Partridge family episode.
Oh, here's,
I got actually a nice quote from the set.
She said,
about Judy Garland,
said,
Judy kept us all going.
When she came on the set,
it was as though
the lights got brighter.
Her freshness and vitality
are things I will never forget.
There you go.
Did she try to fuck her?
That was a sentimental moment.
Oh.
Guy has to bring the robe down
every time.
Every time.
She was burned up.
You know the story that she was in the lift.
Yes.
What she had to do.
Then the fire flashed up the shaft and burned her.
Yeah.
Because she was wearing flammable paint.
That's right.
On her skin.
Flammable makeup.
She was off the film for a month.
Months.
Months.
And what's his name?
Almost died.
The original.
Buddy Epson died because they put him in that uh in that uh that the makeup had silver content and metallic content that got
into his lungs i thought maybe he also had a burnt up shaft i don't know don't turn into him
who's this gilbert who is this famous, super, super famous character actor?
He is one of the kings of the character actors.
Shame on you.
Not Ken, not...
Keenan Wynn?
Jimmy Gleeson?
Jimmy Gleeson it is!
Look at you, you redeemed yourself.
Take that, Norton, it's the people.
There you go.
Meet John Doe.
And he also was the detective in Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
Very good.
Because, like, somebody else says something like, oh, we're going to crack this case open.
And James Gleason goes, better call Houdini.
I love that movie.
I love him.
I love Meet John Doe, too.
Who is the other guy in that who plays the detective?
And here comes Mr. Jordan.
He was a great actor, too.
Now I'm blanking.
He's also in a guy named Joe.
Yeah. The Spencer Tracy picture, which was remade by Spielberg
as always.
He had that
great face and voice
that was always like that.
He talked out of his mouth.
James Gleeson. Gilbert knows him
as Jimmy. Apparently they were
born in New York City.
One time, I had lunch with knows him as Jimmy. Apparently they were trying to be a commitment. Born in New York City. Well, one time
I had lunch
with Maxine Marks.
Oh, that's right.
Chico's daughter.
And she kept referring
to him as Jimmy Gleason.
I love it.
Born in 19...
I don't know.
I lost the year of birth.
I had it here.
What the fuck?
Who was the detective?
All right, which movie
was that?
Here comes Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan. I had written down what What the fuck? Who was the detective? All right, which movie was that? Here comes Mr. Jordan.
Here comes Mr. Jordan.
I had written down what year he was born, but I don't have it.
He starred in Silence.
His career lasted from 1922 to 1958.
Holy shit.
Which is a hell of a run.
Yeah.
Longer than you've been in the business, even, Gilbert.
He's in The Clock.
He's in Rockabye Baby with Jerry.
A lot of these people
work with Jerry Lewis.
Yeah.
It keeps coming up
over and over again.
I guess Jerry Lewis
appreciated the old character actor.
I'm timing the show
on my phone, Paul,
so I can't actually look up.
Yeah, no, I got...
Here comes Mr. Jordan.
I got it up,
but I'm not sure
which one's a detective.
Read the cast.
I just lost it.
It's coming back.
Okay.
We don't get very good Wi-Fi or very good signal in this room.
Yeah, no, the Internet's only like 400 meg per second.
Where?
I only have two bars.
Oh, you got to get on the Wi-Fi.
Oh, well, that's the problem.
They spared no expense on the Wi-Fi.
What do you got, Paul?
Yeah, I can't get it.
Let me keep working on it while we go to the next one.
All right, Gil, you impressed me.
Jay?
By getting Jimmy Gleason.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this.
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That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history.
Thornton Prince was a ladies' man.
To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken.
He loved it so much, he opened Prince's Hot Chicken.
Hot chicken in the window.
This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell.
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Tennessee sounds perfect.
Here's another layup for you.
Who's that?
Uh-oh.
Oh, Sidney Greenstreet.
Another one.
Another one stands way above most of the rest of this group. Yes, absolutely.
And a guy who got a late start in films.
61.
61.
Oh, 61.
61, yeah.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
From Kent, England, a town called Sandwich in Kent, born in 1879, which to give you some
perspective, that was what, like 14 years after lincoln was assassinated
holy christ started in films at the age of 61 maltese falcon being his first film good place
to start casablanca a passage to marseille he has that line in casablanca where he says
leaving casablanca now would take a miracle,
and I'm afraid the Germans have outlawed miracles.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
I was hoping you'd give us a little Sidney Greenstein.
What a script by those Epsteins.
So I turned up, how much time we got?
This is a minor diversion.
So you turned up what?
I turned up one of our favorite words from the Maltese Falcon,
our single most favorite word, gunsel.
Gunsel.
Gunsel.
Yes, of course.
Wilmer the gunsel.
Yeah, that's right.
So there's another word I'd ever heard called catamite, which is a reference to an older man keeping a younger man for sexual purposes.
Holy.
Like me and Gil.
Yes.
Holy, like me and Gil.
Yes.
So Dashiell Hammett replaced, they couldn't use catamite because that was way beyond the bounds of what was respectable.
So Hammett replaced it with Gunsel, which came from the Yiddish word for little goose.
And it was really a synonym for catamite.
So they got away with implying it without actually saying it. Fascinating.
That's good trivia.
And that device is borrowed or used by the Coens in Miller's Crossing.
With the older-
The same idea, yes.
The same idea.
And it's funny that-
Big Hammett fans.
Peter Lorre in Maltese Vulcan, he's like playing it.
They're hinting that he's gay, like he's got a perfume business card that Humphrey Bogart sniffs.
He's got the handkerchief.
He's got, yeah.
Couldn't get away with that then.
He's got a cane that he keeps rubbing against his mouth as he's talking to Bogart.
It's really fascinating stuff.
Stuff you couldn't do in 1941.
But these guys figured out a way to do it.
So what is that guy's name for Christ's sake?
He can't get on the internet.
I'm sure like everybody at home is screaming out his name.
Why don't we bring them on?
All right.
Hang on.
Hang on.
I'll play some waiting music for Ghibli.
Hang on.
I'll find it. All right. Here. I got the cast up, but I don't know who you're music for Ghibli. Hang on, I'll find it.
All right, here, I got the cast up, but I don't know who you're looking at.
Go ahead, give us the cast.
Robert Montgomery.
No, he was the lead.
Claude Rains.
Evelyn Keys.
James Gleason.
Edward Everett Horton.
Rita Johnson.
John Emery.
Donald McBride.
It has to be John Emery or Donald McBride.
John Emery.
Donald McBride plays Inspector Williams.
Oh, okay, Donald McBride.
Evelyn Keyes, I believe, married John Huston.
Oh.
Speaking of the Maltese Falcon.
Okay, get another one.
Who's this?
Oh.
A very famous face.
Oh, Christ!
Is that Billy Gilbert?
Look at you!
You're just toying with me now.
Billy Gilbert. You're toying with me.
I feel like Paul Newman in The Hustler.
Yeah, you're playing possum.
Yeah, like when he says, well, I win sometimes.
And then Murray Hamilton goes, oh, I bet you do.
I just bet you do.
How great would Murray Hamilton have been on this show?
Oh, he would have been.
We had to settle for Eddie Deason's Murray Hamilton stories.
Murray Hamilton, what a great actor.
A great career.
You were talking about Disney movies?
Yeah, there you go.
You found what I found.
Billy Gilbert had a long, drawn-out sneezing routine
that became one of his trademarks
and he played Sneezy in Snow White.
According to what I found too, he was uncredited, but played Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves, Gil.
And he's in that book that, what's his name, wrote about the great comedy teams.
Leonard.
Leonard.
Leonard Moulton wrote it.
And the foreword is by Billy Gilbert.
You bet.
And he worked with every one of them.
Well, yeah.
Chaplin and the Great Dictator.
He's in A Night at the Opera with the Marxes.
He's in, well, he worked with Stan and Ollie.
Yeah.
Laurel discovered him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think he worked with-
I have to go through the list and see if he worked with Fields.
Maybe the Stooges he worked with, I think.
Quite possibly.
Oh, Martin and Lewis, I think he worked with.
Let's see.
He was discovered by Stan Laurel.
He was in a dressing room in an opera house, which I love.
Born in Kentucky.
He's in Mad Love, so he worked with Laurie.
Oh, man.
He's in Anchors and Way, so he worked with Sinatra.
A lot of B pictures, too, on the list.
Yeah, he was a great actor.
When my wife and I watched Stan and Ollie recently, and she had never seen a Laurel and Hardy short,
so I showed her the music box, which Billy Gilbert features prominently in.
Oh, I don't know that.
Oh, you got it.
It's the one where they're trying to get the piano up this incredibly long staircase.
It's very, very famous.
And Billy Gilbert shows up as he does in a lot of that stuff.
He was a gag writer for Hal Roach Studios.
Oh, geez.
So he's in all of those things.
Yeah, he was very funny.
And now I get to stump you again, although this is a very famous character actor.
Let me see if you know this face.
Who's that?
Oh, I'm scared.
Oh.
You recognize him?
I recognize him.
Oh, maybe a hint.
We're going to get you here.
It's a hard one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's sort of a Porter Hall type, sort of a Franklin Pangborn type.
Yeah.
But he's neither of those guys.
He's in The Prisoner of Zenda, The Man They Could Not Hang, The Karloff Picture.
Mad Made Monster, he's in.
Oh.
One of your favorites.
Oh, wow.
Son of Flubber, he's in Who's Minding the Store again, Jerry Lewis.
Yes.
His name is Byron Folger.
Oh, geez.
F-O-U-L-G-E-R.
Somebody who turns up in a million, and they live by night.
He's in Wonder Man with Danny Kaye.
Even Captain Nice, he was on in the 60s.
So you got to say that for Jerry Lewis.
He appreciated those old-time characters.
I tell you, I really stumbled on a ton of them.
He had 489 credits.
There you go. And nobody knows the damn man's name. I tell you, I really stumbled on a ton of them. He had 489 credits.
There you go.
And nobody knows the damn man's name after 489 credits.
That's a shame.
Yeah.
I mean, I knew it.
I don't know why.
He's one of those guys that was on my radar.
Who's that new person?
Wait a minute.
Is that the original Hale?
Yes, it's Alan Hale Sr.
You got it even before Frank started the timer.
Very good.
Alan Hale Sr., the father of the skipper.
Yeah.
Alan Hale Jr.
And what did you find on him? He was in a James Cagney movie.
Yeah, everything.
He worked with everybody.
He had a long career in a lot of films.
Died young at 57.
But he worked with Gable, Chaney Sr.
He had a long, silent career.
He worked with Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Cagney, Errol Flynn.
He's in A View of Human Bondage, Stella Dallas, Seahawk, Inspector General with Annie Kaye.
What did you find, Mr. Paul?
Well, you guys may be familiar with this.
This was new to me.
When he became a character actor, it was at Warner Brothers,
and there were a bunch of them that became known as the Warner Brothers Stock Company.
Yes, indeed.
Right?
And he also played Little John.
He did, famously.
In three different movies.
Yes, he was in the silent Robin Hood.
I don't know if I even have.
I got Errol Flynn.
Yeah.
Yeah, Robin Hood 1922.
22.
Rogues of Sherwood Forest in 1950.
There you go, Gil.
Little John again.
Aspired to be an opera singer originally.
What do you think?
One more?
Yeah.
Okay.
Here's the last one.
I hold in my hand the last envelope.
Remember when Ed McMahon and Johnny would do the car acting?
Yes. Everybody to applaud. And everybody to applaud. Yes. And and Johnny would do the car napkins? Oh, yes.
Everybody to applaud.
And everybody to applaud.
Yes.
And then Carson would insult the audience.
Yes.
May the sewers of Rangoon back up into your breakfast.
I remember.
May your only son win a Farrah Fawcett lookalike contest.
But probably written by Pat McCormick.
Who's that?
Oh, oh, oh.
That one's just for you.
Oh. Oh, fuck. Who's that? That one's just for you. Oh.
Oh, fuck!
It's not him.
Oh, jeez.
He's been mentioned recently.
Edward Arnold?
No, Edward Albert.
He was mentioned when we had Dick Cavett here.
Holy fuck.
Oh, God.
He's so familiar.
Yes.
I love how we're doing a visual quiz in an audio medium.
And the audience is screaming, I can't see the faces.
He has very bushy eyebrows.
Oh, he's been in everything, that guy.
A European character actor known for his evil parts, evil roles, and very, very bushy, prominent eyebrows.
And Gilbert will now kick himself to death because when Dick Cavett was here,
we talked extensively about Oscar Homolka.
Oscar Homolka!
Oh, fuck, I am kicking myself.
Now, how many people, there are 300 million people in the United States,
how many people would have that reaction to Oscar Homolka?
Only him.
Because there was.
There are 300 million podcasts in the United States.
No one's talking about Oscar Homolka.
There was a hysterical moment on The Odd Couple.
Yes.
I knew you'd go to that.
And Jack Klugman's on the phone.
He goes, yeah, hi, it's Oscar.
He goes, Oscar Madison, how many Oscars you know?
And his eyes pop out of his head and he goes, you know Oscar Homolka?
That's great.
A joke written by writers in 1972 for us.
Yes.
For the 12 people who knew Oscar Homolka.
I remember watching The Odd Couple with my mother.
Very good.
And we both just screamed.
Good memory.
Good memories.
He was married four times.
That's a lot.
Born in Vienna in 1898.
Again, a lot of silent films.
He's in I Remember Mama, Ball of Fire.
Capra used him a lot.
Not Capra.
Excuse me.
Wilder, because he's in Seven Year Itch.
Mr. Sardonicus, Gilbert.
Oh!
He's in Mr. Sardonicus and his last role.
Oh, that's right.
He's his assistant.
Correct.
His last role was Blake Edwards' The Tamarind Seed in 1974.
So that's another long career.
These guys worked a long time.
A guy like Byron Folger, would you say 400 roles?
Yeah. Insanity. Fritz Feld, would you say 400 roles? Yeah.
Insanity.
Fritz Feld must have been at 400 things too.
Yeah, I mean, it's assumed they probably, what do you think?
They make a comfortable living but not make it a fortune.
They never become stars, but they're known and people recognize them and then say,
I know I've seen you in something, but I can't place them.
One who never stopped working was Elijah Cook Jr.
Yeah, Wilmaotha Gunsel.
Yeah.
There you go.
Also in an Odd Couple episode.
Yes, yes.
And that one with Blinky.
He was the heel.
Yeah.
Blinky Madison.
Yes.
I got to get some Odd Couple people in here.
I could find some Odd Couple writers.
I remember in that Blinky episode, Tony Randall is sitting down in a chair.
He's the optometrist.
Yes, and this sexy girl sits on his lap, and he goes, ma'am, you shouldn't be doing this.
I have a, what's that word I'm thinking of?
A wife.
A wife.
Yes.
what's that word I'm thinking of?
A wife.
A wife.
Yes.
Played by the vivacious Barbara Rhodes, as I recall,
who did a lot of that stuff.
Those Odd Couple episodes hold up beautifully. And there's another part in that Odd Couple episode where a cop comes in
and he's ready to close up the place, and Klugman gives him a wad of bills, and he goes,
well, let's shut you up for a while.
And he looks, he goes, forever.
I think that was Billy Halep.
I think that was Billy Halep.
Do I have the right actor?
Oh, this is going to kill me.
It's either Billy Halep or the other guy who was sort of like him.
Don't mind me going That was a great episode.
Going off on crazy tangents.
Okay, now I got to look up who that actor was.
Thank you, Paul Raybone.
Thank you, Gilbert.
This was fun, right?
Oh, this was a lot of fun.
You love to go down character after Memory Lane.
Paul, thanks for doing the research.
Yeah.
What was that?
Frank's got his own show going on here in the background.
You want to take us out with a little Sydney Green Street, Gilbert?
Oh.
In honor of...
I enjoy talking to a man who enjoys to talk.
I distrust the closed mouth man.
Very nice.
Beautiful.
See you next time.
Gilbert and Frank's Colossal Obsessions