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Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton (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. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella S. Diack and Edward Everett Horton. His mother was born in Matanzas, Cuba to Mary Orr and George Diack, immigrants from Scotland. Many sources state that Edward Everett Horton's grandfather and namesake was Edward Everett Hale, author of The Man Without a Country. Horton attended the Boys' High School, Brooklyn, and Baltimore City College high school in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was inducted into that school's Hall of Fame. He attended college at Brooklyn Polytechnic and Columbia University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.
Horton started 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, and started getting roles in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the 1922 comedy film Too Much Business, and he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in Beggar on Horseback in 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 movie work easily, and appeared in some of Warner Bros.' early talkies, including The Hottentot and Sonny Boy. His distinctive voice was one of his trademarks.
Horton originally went under his given name, Edward Horton. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally, reasoning that there might be other actors named Edward Horton, but only one named Edward Everett Horton.
Horton's screen character was instantly defined from his earliest talkies: pleasant and dignified, but politely hesitant when faced with a potentially embarrassing situation. 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. Some of his noteworthy films include The Front Page (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Alice in Wonderland (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935, one of several Astaire/Rogers films in which Horton appeared), Danger - Love at Work (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), Holiday (1938), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). He last appeared in a non-speaking role in Cold Turkey (1971).
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.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a cottage on Horton's estate for a time in the late 1930s.
In a scene in Friz Freleng's cartoon Hare Trigger, Yosemite Sam (in his debut) calls himself "the meanest, toughest, rip-roarin'-est, Edward Everett Horton-est hombre what ever packed a six-shooter!"
From 1945 to 1947, Horton hosted radio's Kraft Music Hall. During the 1950s, Horton worked in television. One of his most famous appearances is an I Love Lucy episode, where he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor. (Horton, a last-minute replacement for another actor, received a special, appreciative credit in this episode.) Beginning in 1959 he narrated the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon show. In 1965 he played the medicine man, Roaring Chicken, in the sitcom F Troop. He parodied this role, portraying "Chief Screaming Chicken" on Batman as a pawn to Vincent Price's Egghead in the villain's attempt to take control of Gotham City.
Horton died of cancer at age 84 in Encino, California. He is buried in Glendale's Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Shortly after he died, the city of Los Angeles renamed a portion of Amestoy Avenue, the dead-end street where he lived in the district of Encino, "Edward Everett Horton Lane". For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Edward Everett Horton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard.
Horton was greatly admired by the British DJ & comedian Maurice Cole, who took the stage name Kenny Everett in his honor.
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Edward Everett Horton Jr.
March 18, 1886 Brooklyn, New York,
September 29, 1970 Encino, California
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Jazz began in the 20th century, when bands in New Orleans began to apply the syncopated rhythms of ragtime to a variety of other tunes. In the first days of jazz, ensemble playing was emphasized. Only gradually did jazz come to be based on improvised solos.
The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
~Alfred Hitchcock
Edward Everett Horton had one of those faces that could crack me up with just one look. Of his movies my favorites were the ones with Fred Astaire.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, CA., in the Whispering Pines section at the top of the hill.
Edward Everett Horton's grandfather and namesake was Edward Everett Hale, author of "The Man Without a Country."
Played the role of Professor Nick Potter in Holiday (1930) and again in the 1938 remake directed by George Cukor.
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 281-283. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Tommy Bond was a regular on Horton's radio show in the 1930's.
Diagnosed with cancer, he was hospitalized at Glen Falls, New York for several weeks before returning home to his San Fernando, California home, where he died at the age of 83.
According to an in-depth article by Eve Golden in "Classic Images" magazine, Edward's longtime companion was actor Gavin Gordon, who was 15 years his junior. Not much was ever documented on the couple. They appeared in one movie together - Pocketful of Miracles (1961).
Appeared in a number of revivals of the comedy play "Springtime for Henry" beginning in the 1930s and extending into the 1960s. He played the part of the effete Henry Dewlip more than 3,000 times.
In the 1920s he acted in and managed the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles with his brother and business manager, George.
Like Zasu Pitts, Horton excelled in comedy and specialized in the fretful, woebegone "Nervous Nellie" types. The duo were the only actors who could utter the simple words "Oh, dear!" and make it sound like it was the end of the world.
Joined a Gilbert and Sullivan stock company in 1907 on Staten Island and performed in several shows, including "The Mikado". He went on to join several theatre companies in the 1910s, including the Orpheum Players in Philadelphia, The Baker Stock Company in Oregon, and the Crescent Theatre in Brooklyn.
Studied business at both Polytechnic Institute and at Columbia. At Columbia, however, he began acting in collegiate plays and that changed the direction of his life.
His parents, Edward Everett Horton Sr. and Isabella (Diack), were Scottish immigrants. He was the eldest of four children - George, Winter Davis, and Hannahbelle were his other siblings. The family remained close throughout their lives. Edward's mother lived with him until she died at the age of 101. His brothers and sister also spent their later years residing at his Encino estate.
[at the suggestion of retirement, c. 1966, aged 80] Dear Lord! I would go right out of my mind.
[on Rita Hayworth] She was so sweet and hard-working. She asked me to watch her work out her dance routines and go over her lines with her. I'd tell her little things and she'd whisper, "Don't tell the director, please." She was so modest and affectionate.
[on Douglas Sirk] He was delightful and ambitious and so well-informed.
I have my own little kingdom. I do the scavenger parts no one else wants and I get well paid for it.
