Edgar Kennedy

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Edgar Livingston Kennedy April 26 1890 November 9 1948 was an American comedic film character actor known as Slow Burn A slow burn is an exasperated facial expression performed very deliberately Kennedy embellished this by rubbing his hand over his bald head and across his face in an attempt to hold his temper Kennedy is best known for a small role as a lemonade vendor in the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup as well as the many Hal Roach films he appeared in Kennedy became so identified with frustration that practically every studio hired him to play hotheads He often played dumb cops detectives and even a prison warden sometimes he was a grouchy moving man truck driver or bluecollar workman His character usually lost his temper at least once In Diplomaniacs Kennedy presides over an international tribunal where Wheeler Woolsey want to do something about world peace Well ya cant do anything about it here yells Kennedy this is a peace conference Kennedy established as the poster boy for frustration even starred in an instructional film titled The Other Fellow in which loudmouthed roadhog Edgar always vents his anger on other drivers each one played by Kennedy as well little realizing that to them he is the other fellow Perhaps his most unusual roles were as a puppeteer in the detective mystery The Falcon Strikes Back and as a philosophical bartender inspired to create exotic cocktails in Harold Lloyds last film The Sin of Harold Diddlebock 1947 He also played comical detectives opposite two titans of acting John Barrymore in Twentieth Century 1934 and Rex Harrison in Unfaithfully Yours 1948 in the latter he tells conductor Harrison that Nobody handles Handel like you handle Handel Kennedy died of throat cancer at the Motion Picture Hospital San Fernando Valley on 9 November 1948 His body was interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery Culver City Los Angeles County California