Ernest Truex
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| Ernest Truex | |
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| Born | September 19, 1889 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 1973 (aged 83) Fallbrook, California, U.S |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1913–1966 |
| Spouse | Julia Mills (?-?) (her death) Mary Jane Barrett (?-?) (divorced) 1 child Sylvia Field (1937-1973) (his death) 3 children |
Ernest Truex (September 19, 1889 – June 26, 1973) was an American actor of stage and film.
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[edit] Career
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Truex started acting at age five and toured through Missouri at age nine as "The Child Wonder in Scenes from Shakespeare". His Broadway debut came in 1908 and he performed in several David Belasco plays and portrayed the titled role in the 1915 musical Very Good Eddie.
He made his film debut in 1913, but did not work in film full time for another twenty years. He tended to play "milquetoast" characters and in The Warrior's Husband he played a "nance". In the 1939 The Adventures of Marco Polo, he played Marco Polo's comical assistant, opposite Gary Cooper.
Early in television, Truex guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. From 1953 to 1954, he co-starred with a young Brandon De Wilde in Jamie on ABC. He played aging Grandpa McHummer striking a bond with young Jamie, his recently orphaned grandson.
He also starred in the first season (1958 – 1959) of CBS's The Ann Sothern Show as Jason Macauley, the manager of the swank Bartley House hotel in New York City. Reta Shaw played his wife, Flora. In 1960, Truex appeared with Harpo Marx in the episode "Silent Panic" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson.
In later life, he became known for playing elderly men on television in works such as Justice, Mr. Peepers, and had the main role in the "Kick the Can" episode of Rod Serling's original The Twilight Zone (With his son Barry). In another Twilight Zone episode, What You Need, he played a traveling peddler who just happened to have exactly what people needed, just before they knew they needed it.
[edit] Marriages
His first wife was Julia Mills with whom he had two sons, Philip in 1920 and James in 1922. Philip had an acting career until the early 1950s. Philip Truex's most famous performance is the title role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry as Harry, the corpse dragged all over the countryside by several other characters in this film.
A widower, he married stage actress Mary Jane Barrett, appearing with her in New York in such plays as The Third Little Show, (1931), The Hook-Up (1935), and Fredericka (1937). They had one child, Barry Truex, who had a brief acting career of his own. In 1934, Truex directed, co-produced, and starred in the play Sing and Whistle, which co-starred actress Sylvia Field who would later become his third wife upon his divorce from Mary Jane Barrett.
[edit] Death
On June 26, 1973, Truex died of a heart attack at the age of 83.
[edit] Partial filmography
- Six Cylinder Love (1923)
- Whistling in the Dark (1933)
- Everybody Dance (1936)
- The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938)
- It's a Wonderful World (1939)
- Bachelor Mother (1939)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- Lillian Russell (1940)
- Christmas in July (1940)
- Don't Get Personal (1942)
- Private Buckaroo (1942)
- The Affairs of Martha (1942)
- Chip Off the Old Block (1944)
- Night in Paradise (1946)
- All Mine to Give (1957)
- Twilight for the Gods (1958)
