Edward Everett Horton

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia 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 Horton began 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 where he began acting in Hollywood films His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business 1922 but he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in the drama Beggar on Horseback 1925 In the late 1920s he starred in tworeel silent comedies for Educational Pictures and made the transition to talking pictures with Educational in 1929 As a stagetrained performer he found more film work easily and appeared in some of Warner Bros early talkies including The Terror 1928 and Sonny Boy 1929 Horton initially used his given name Edward Horton professionally His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally reasoning that other actors might be named Edward Horton but only one named Edward Everett Horton Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the timehonored double take an actors reaction to something followed by a delayed more extreme reaction In Hortons 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 These include The Front Page 1931 Trouble in Paradise 1932 Alice in Wonderland 1933 The Gay Divorcee 1934 the first of several AstaireRogers films in which Horton appeared Top Hat 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 Its 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