Frank Orth

Frank Orth was an American actor born in Philadelphia He is probably best remembered for his portrayal of Inspector Faraday in the 19511953 television series Boston Blackie By 1897 Orth was performing in vaudeville with his wife Ann Codee in an act called Codee and Orth In 1909 he expanded into song writing with songs such as The Phone Bell Rang and Meet Me on the Boardwalk Dearie His first contact with motion pictures was in 1928 when he was part of the first foreignlanguage shorts in sound produced by Warner Bros He and his wife also appeared together in a series of tworeel comedies in the early 1930s Orths first major screen credit was in Prairie Thunder a Dick Foran western in 1937 From then on he was often cast as bartenders pharmacists and grocery clerks and always distinctly Irish He had a recurring role in the Dr Kildare series of films and also in the Nancy Drew series as the befuddled Officer Tweedy Among his better roles were the newspaper man Cary Grant telephones early in His Girl Friday one of the quartet singing Gary Owen in They Died with Their Boots On thereby giving Errol Flynn as Gen Custer the idea of associating the tune with the 7th Cavalry and as the little man carrying the sign reading The End Is Near throughout Colonel Effinghams Raid However Orth is probably best remembered for his portrayal of Inspector Faraday in the 19511953 television series Boston Blackie A short plump roundfaced man often smoking a cigar Orth as Faraday wore his own darkrimmed spectacles though rarely in feature films In 1959 Orth retired from show business after throat surgery His wife died in 1961 after around fifty years of marriage Orth died on March 17 1962 He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills next to his wife