More --That Guy is Everywhere!
In alphabetical order, some actors who seemed to have small parts in many, many movies & TV shows and were familiar-looking, but most people didn't know their names. This list begins with 1935 and stretches to the early 1980's. See how many you remember or look-em up on IMDb--you'll remember them then.
List activity
364 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
15 people
- Korean-American character actor Philip Ahn played hundreds of Chinese and Japanese characters during a long career. He was born in Los Angeles in 1905 (though 1911 is the year usually given, U.S. government records confirm that Ahn was born in 1905), the son of a Korean diplomat. He attended the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Ahn got his first film acting job in 1935 and quickly made a place for himself playing Asians of many ethnicities. Although his kindly demeanor made him perfect for sympathetic roles, he could excel in the occasional villainous "Yellow Peril"-type role. Condemned, like most Asian actors of the period, to stereotypical roles, Ahn nevertheless brought a dignity to even the most subservient of characters. In his later years he achieved his greatest fame as the wise Master Kan on the television series Kung Fu (1972). Ahn was also a successful Los Angeles restaurateur. He died in 1978. Not to be confused with his brother, actor Philson Ahn.Korean actor who played both Chinese & Japanese parts for many years. He was Charlie Chan's son-in-law in the movie CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU (1938)
- Actor
- Director
A graduate of the University of Southern California School of Law, Morris Ankrum was an attorney and an economics professor before switching careers and joining the theater. He was a veteran stage actor by the time he entered the film industry in the 1930s. His film career spanned 1933-64, during which time he played in 279 films and TV shows. Ankrum spent much time in westerns, playing everything from Indian chiefs to crooked bankers. Among his best remembered parts are his numerous villainous roles in Paramount's highly popular Hopalong Cassidy film series. The Hoppy films in which he appears include North of the Rio Grande (1937), Hills of Old Wyoming (1937), Pirates on Horseback (1941), Three Men from Texas (1940), Borderland (1937), and Hopalong Cassidy Returns (1936), among others.
He was cast in many other films throughout the '30s, '40s, and '50s, varying from small appearances to co-starring roles. He can be seen in low-budget "B" pictures and big-budget blockbusters alike. It was in the 1950s, though, that he hit his stride in the science-fiction genre, where his gruff, no-nonsense demeanor and authoritative voice perfectly fit the role of the military officer helping scientists fight off outer-space menaces, most memorably as Col. Fielding in the classic Invaders from Mars (1953).
Later in his career he did much TV work, in such series as Bonanza (1959), The Rifleman (1958), Rawhide (1959), Cheyenne (1955), Gunsmoke (1955), The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955), Maverick (1957), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Sea Hunt (1958), and over a dozen more. At the end of his career from 1957-64, he had a recurring role as a judge in 22 episodes on the Perry Mason (1957) TV series.He often played military officers. He played a judge several times on the TV show "Perry Mason" (1957)- Jan Arvan was born on 10 April 1913 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for The Poseidon Adventure (1972), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) and Soldiers of Fortune (1955). He died on 24 May 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.He was in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE as well as many TV shows often as a maitre'd or waiter, usually with French accent and snooty attitude.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
William Boyett was born on 3 January 1927 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for When a Stranger Calls (1979), Newsies (1992) and Turner & Hooch (1989). He was married to Joan Amelia Reynolds and Willagene Wither. He died on 29 December 2004 in Mission Hills, California, USA.He was on "General Hospital," but in TV series he was always a policeman. Finally he had a semi-permanent gig as a Captain on "Adam-12." His delivery of dialogue was very natural & realistic. He made you believe what he said.- Distinguished character villain Douglass (R.) Dumbrille, whose distinctive stern features, beady eyes, tidy mustache, prominent hook nose and suave, cultivated presence graced scores of talking films, was born on October 13, 1889, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was first employed as a bank clerk in his home town but caught the acting bug and subsequently left his position to pursue work in various stock companies in the States.
After appearing in a production of "Rain" in 1923, Dumbrille made his Broadway debut in 1924 as Banquo in "Macbeth" at the 48th Street Theatre. Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s he was a moderate fixture on the Great White Way, appearing in dramas ("The Call of Life" (1925) with Eva Le Gallienne, "Chinese O'Neill" (1929), "As You Desire Me" (1931)), romantic comedies ("Joseph" (1930), "Child of Manhattan" (1932)) and musical operettas ("Princess Flavia" (1925), "Princess Charming" (1930)). He also appeared in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s 1928 musical production of "The Three Musketeers", portraying Athos alongside Dennis King's D'Artagnan, with Rudolf Friml providing the music. A decade later he portrayed Athos once again, this time in a film version (The Three Musketeers (1939)).
On the silent screen he portrayed Thomas Jefferson in the short historical film The Declaration of Independence (1924), but did not return to film until 1931, when he began unleashing a number of sneering, oily villains on the viewing public. His first film job was to harass sea captain Gary Cooper in His Woman (1931). From there he proved a slick nemesis to a number of stars, both male and female: Marion Davies with his leering moneybags in Blondie of the Follies (1932); Pat O'Brien with his cruel-minded chain gang warden in Laughter in Hell (1933); Barbara Stanwyck as her unctuous love patsy in Baby Face (1933); James Cagney as gangster Spade Maddock in Lady Killer (1933); Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy as a mobster involved in horse race fixing in Broadway Bill (1934) and, most notoriously, Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone, both of whom he induces fingernail torture ("We have ways of making men talk!") as the sinister, turban-wearing rebel leader Mohammed Khan in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).
Dumbrille was also a great pompous foil in comedy slapstick - harassing everybody from The Marx Brothers, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to Bob Hope. He returned to the musical operetta fold as well on film and played a nuisance to Jeanette MacDonald in three of her films. Seen everywhere, both billed and unbilled, he played sheriffs who went bad in westerns, red-herring suspects or victims who deserved their fate in murder mysteries and corrupters of the legal system in political dramas.
The man everybody loved to hate on film softened his image a bit with old age, playing a number of non-plussed executive or officious types in films and TV comedy. Finding a stream of TV work in the 1950s and early 1960s (including The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), The Untouchables (1959), Perry Mason (1957), Laramie (1959). Petticoat Junction (1963)), Dumbrille's final role was at age 76 as a doctor in a TV episode of Batman (1966) in 1966.
His long-time first wife, Jessie Lawson, died in 1957, leaving him two sons, John and Douglas Murray. Dumbrille had more than a few Hollywood tongues wagging when, at age 70, he married Patricia Mowbray, the 28-year-old daughter of his good friend, character actor Alan Mowbray. The marriage was a lasting one, however, and she was among his survivors when he passed away several years later from a heart attack on April 2, 1974. Dumbrille was buried at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California.He appeared in the A-list classic MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN. He also co-starred in CASTLE IN THE DESERT (1941), the last Charlie Chan movie made at Twentieth-Century Fox Studios. He had a small but important part in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS as an Army officer whose brain is amalgamated by aliens. It is a Sci-Fi classic with great fx for the 1950's showing the monuments in Washington, D.C. being sheered off by flying saucers. He appeared as a judge on "Perry Mason." - Actor
- Soundtrack
Stocky, balding American character actor with a rich, deep voice, equally adept at Western bad guys and Shakespeare. He began his career in films in minor roles, primarily as gangland henchmen, and progressed to become widely familiar as a figure in a variety of dramas and occasional comedies. Although a stalwart and reliable supporting player, he was not of a type to essay leading roles in films, but remained a well-respected actor whose face, if not name, is familiar to a generation of film and television viewers.He appeared in the Academy Award-winning movie PATTON, but was the "baddie" in many westerns. He had a unique style of delivering his lines and menaced many women and men, especially in saloons nearly always playing a real low-life thug.- One of those wonderfully busy character actors whose face is familiar if not his name, mild-mannered actor Byron Foulger began performing with community theater, and stock and repertory companies after graduating from the University of Utah. He met his future wife, character actress Dorothy Adams, in one of these companies. The marriage lasted nearly five decades and ended only with his death.
Making his Broadway debut in a 1920 production of "Medea" that featured Moroni Olsen as Jason (of the Argonauts), and went on to appear in several other Olsen Broadway productions and in close succession (including "The Trial of Joan of Arc," "Mr. Faust" and "Candida"). While touring the country with Olsen's stock company, he ended up at the Pasadena Playhouse where he both acted and directed. Thereafter he and wife Dorothy decided to settle in Los Angeles.
Together the acting couple tried to stake a claim for themselves in 30s and 40s Hollywood films. Both succeeded, appearing in hundreds of film parts, both together and apart, albeit in small and often unbilled bits. A man of meek, nervous countenance, Foulger's short stature and squinty stare could be used for playing both humble and shady fellows. In the 1940s, the actor became a part of Preston Sturges' company of players, appearing in five of his classic films -- The Great McGinty (1940), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) and The Great Moment (1944).
Although predominantly employed as an owlish storekeeper, mortician, professor, or bank teller, his better parts had darker intentions. He was exceptional as weaselly, mealy-mouthed, whining henchmen who inevitably showed their yellow streak by the film's end.
The character actor eased into TV roles in the 1950s and '60s, displaying a comedy side in many folksy, rural sitcoms. His final regular TV role was as train conductor Wendell Gibbs in the final years of the Petticoat Junction (1963) series. The father of actress Rachel Ames, Foulger died of a heart ailment on April 4, 1970, coincidentally the same day the final new episode of Petticoat Junction (1963) was broadcast. .A small man, he always had a mustache and a "golly-gee" attitude even if he were accused of murder. He was in so many movies beginning in the 1940's then episodic TV shows stretching into the 1970's that I don't know how long his filmography is, but it must list 100 appearances. No one could act so innocent and put-upon as Byron Foulger. Indispensable, so it seemed to casting directors. - Diminutive, gentle-featured character actor, who specialised in playing meek, reticent or kindly gentlemen, usually of Gallic, Germanic or Eastern European backgrounds. Istvan Gyergyay was born in the old Austro/Hungarian town of Ungvar (present-day Uzhgorod) and studied at Budapest University. His acting career began on stage with the Hungarian National Theatre in 1924. By the end of the decade, he appeared in Hungarian films (one of them, Tokajerglut (1933), starred the Hungarian actor, and future Hollywood favourite, S.Z. Sakall). In 1934, Istvan moved to Britain and became first 'Stefan', then 'Steven'. In spite of initial linguistic problems, he soon managed to secure steady work on screen and in radio. Seven years later, he turned up in Hollywood and soon found himself much in demand for playing waiters, maitre d's, stewards, doctors and the occasional ship captain.
Geray appeared in roles that backed up the exotic locales stipulated for films like The Mask of Dimitrios (1944). He also gave valuable support in pictures with military or espionage themes, from Hotel Berlin (1945) to Gilda (1946) (as the casino's washroom attendant, Uncle Pio, whose actions in the final scene are crucial in removing the chief encumbrance to a happy ending). In The Moon and Sixpence (1942), he effectively essayed the buffoonish painter Dirk Stroeve, though Bosley Crowther of the New York Times (October 28, 1942) found his performance "inclined to affectation". Under contract at Columbia from 1946 to 1952, Steven even featured in a rare starring role in the cult film noir So Dark the Night (1946). From the mid-1950's, Steven worked almost exclusively as a reliable TV guest actor and was somewhat unfortunate to round off his career as Dr. Frankenstein's grandson Rudolph out in the Wild West of William Beaudine's low budget exploitation flick Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966).He played a critical role at the end of the classic GILDA (1946) for most of the movie simply the bartender. He also appeared in the classic ALL ABOUT EVE (1950). He starred in only one film, now considered a classic for its originality & cinematography plus direction. That film is SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946). See it! Mainly, he played a kindly, benign and gentle, but intelligent, guy in many small parts. He used a French accent to disguise an Eastern European accent. - Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. was born on 14 March 1916 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for The Little Savage (1959), Villa!! (1958) and The Lineup (1954). He died on 15 April 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.A career stretching from early 40's until 1982, known almost always as simply Rodolfo Hoyos, he had parts, sometimes in multiple episodes, of every major TV series from the 1950's into the 1980's. One of the few Mexican actors to do so. Born in Mexico City, D.F. he came to the U.S. and learned English well, with only a slight accent. He appeared in not only "General Hospital" (1963) but in STAGECOACH TO FURY (1956) and a starring role in an episode of "McMillan & Wife" (1971) in 1974 in the episode Game of Survival as Foreman of a thousand-acre ranch. Rodolfo Hoyos truly was a guy who was everywhere.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Perennial film western heavy I. Stanford Jolley could be spotted anywhere and everywhere in dusty "B" fare from 1935 on. Often mustachioed, this freelancing, wideset-eyed, black-hatted villain, who showed up in Hollywood following vaudeville and Broadway experience, could be counted on to give the sagebrush hero a devil of a time before the film's end.
Born on October 24, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Morristown, Jolley was nicknamed "Ike" (short for his given name "Isaac") by his parents but "Stan" by his friends. Of French and English descent, his entertainment-minded father, Robert B. Jolley, at one time owned and operated a traveling circus and carnival before becoming a successful restaurateur and opening an electrical contracting service. Jolley worked at his father's electrical store following high school for a time but then drifted around for a few years while searching for a passionate direction in life.
Around the time he married Emily Hacker in 1921, he took an interest in performing and started in vaudeville for both the B.F. Keith and Marcus Loew circuits. He also performed on stage and in stock shows, which led to a role as a blind man on Broadway in "Humoresque" in 1926. His father's death interrupted his acting pursuits, and he returned home to New Jersey in 1929 in order to handle the family's business affairs when the Great Depression brought his father's company to virtual bankruptcy.
In 1935, Jolley took a chance and moved his family (which now included two children) out west in order to reignite his acting career. His raw, sunken-cheeked, cold-eyed features seemed ideal for westerns and he found initial work in the genre in extra parts, wherein he learned how to ride horses on the spot. Although one of his first bits was in the Bette Davis drama Front Page Woman (1935), it wasn't long before he was firmly entrenched in oaters, playing uncredited bits throughout the rest of the 1930s. Slowly but surely he transitioned to featured roles in the WWII era, playing a reliable adversary to such cowboy heroes as Ray Corrigan in Trail of the Silver Spurs (1941) and Boot Hill Bandits (1942); Tom Keene in Arizona Roundup (1942); George Houston in Border Roundup (1942) and Outlaws of Boulder Pass (1942); Robert Livingston in Death Rides the Plains (1943) and Wolves of the Range (1943); Russell Hayden in Frontier Law (1943); Buster Crabbe in the western serial Blazing Frontier (1943), The Kid Rides Again (1943), and Lightning Raiders (1945)_; Dave O'Brien in Return of the Rangers (1943) and Outlaw Roundup (1944); and Tex Ritter in Oklahoma Raiders (1944), Gangsters of the Frontier (1944), and The Whispering Skull (1944).
Jolley's array of gunslingers, henchmen, and outlaws continued into the postwar years, but he wasn't completely confined to westerns. He also made appearances in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, The Ape (1940) with Boris Karloff (in which Jolley's little boy Stan Jolley appeared as an extra in a soda shop), Corregidor (1943) with Otto Kruger, the serial Batman (1943), Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944) with Sidney Toler, The Desert Hawk (1944) with Gilbert Roland, The Crimson Ghost (1946), the serials King of the Rocket Men (1949) and Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951), Joan of Arc (1948) with Ingrid Bergman, and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) with John Wayne.
Come the 1950s, however, Jolley was almost completely confined in films and on TV to the western genre. On the small screen he became a familiar nemesis to "The Lone Ranger" and also played guest villain to "Annie Oakley," "Hopalong Cassidy, "The Cisco Kid," "Kit Carson," "Cheyenne" and "Daniel Boone". Jolley's baritone voice was also used on radio for such shows as The Lux Radio Theatre. He continued to act past age 70, including in his last film, Night of the Lepus (1972), directed partly by his son Stan Jolley, who also became an Oscar-nominated art director.
The heavy-smoking character actor was diagnosed with emphysema in his final years and died of the respiratory illness on December 6, 1978, at the Motion Picture and TV Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.From an uncredited role in FRONT PAGE WOMAN (1935) until his last role as 'Drunk' in 1976, he appeared in nearly every western movie & TV series from the 1930's through the mid-1970's. He also appeared in the horror movie HAUNTED PALACE (1963). Usually a conniving villain with a pencil mustache, in a 1959 episode of "Wanted: Dead or Alive" called 'Chain Gang' he played a pathetic slave in a chain gang from which no one escapes ever; he foils Steve McQueen's character Josh Randall from threatening to cut the throat of the corrupt boss of the gang. All the men on the chain gang turn against him. Then, supposedly, for his loyalty, he is given $10.00 and set free. He is a sniveling, scraping old man. Later, it's found that he was murdered that night just beyond earshot. This spurs Randall & the others to mutiny and they all escape except the man who sacrifices his life to save Randall from being killed in a mine explosion. A truly heartbreaking role for the usual villain he played.- Actor
- Additional Crew
His icy demeanor and piercing stare on screen epitomized the type of Nazi menace with a blind obedience to Hitler that everyone loved to hate. Kosleck portrayed Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, 5 times, as well as various German army officers, SS troopers and concentration camp officers. He was also effective playing spies, agents, and psychopaths.Due to his opposition to Hitler in German cinema, Martin Kosleck barely escaped a Gestapo Death Squad. But, in U.S. movies he portrayed Dr. Josef Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister & Hitler favorite, with no compunction. He also portrayed assorted SS Officers, Concentration Camp Kommandants, spies, agents & psychopaths. But, in Fly-By-Night (1942) he died a hero. He escaped from an asylum where Nazi agents were holding him and his mentor Prof. Langner. Langner would not reveal to the Nazis the effects of a weapon he had, by chance, discovered 5 yrs. before. It was a weapon which would have effectively neutralized any ground forces attacking the European continent. Kosleck's character George Taylor hitches a ride with Dr. Geoffrey Burton on a rainy night and leaves him a ticket to pick up a parcel at a local post office. Taylor is murdered for informing Dr. Burton some vital information. So, in this role, his sacrifice makes him, in the end, the first hero in this frenetic chase, suspense movie. He was also a spy in the 1940 Hitchcock thriller FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
A tall, distinguished-looking English character actor with aristocratic bearing and a precisely modulated voice, Alan William Napier-Clavering was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England. A cousin of the former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (graduating in 1925) and spent his formative years as an actor with Oxford Repertory and, from 1924, on the London stage. During the 1930s, he found his niche in Shakespearean roles. His characterisation of Menenius in a 1954 Boston revival of "Coriolanus" was described in the Christian Science Monitor (January 23, 1954) as imbued with "benevolent distinction and with some of the comic quality of the part". However, by that time, Napier had largely forsaken the stage for the screen.
In 1939, Alan Napier immigrated to America and, in the course of nearly five decades, appeared in film and on television as noblemen, manservants and doctors. His gaunt, suave, sometimes bespectacled characters could be kindly or nefarious. He gave good support in the supernatural thriller The Uninvited (1944) and lent gravitas to his role of Cicero in Julius Caesar (1953). Baby boomer TV audiences will remember him fondly as Bruce Wayne's ever reliable, and very English, butler Alfred Pennyworth in Batman (1966), starring Adam West. Napier's second wife, Aileen Dickens Bouchier Hawksley (nicknamed "Gypsy"), was a great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Alan Napier died at age 85 of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California on August 8, 1988.Tall, distinguished character actor with aristocratic bearing and a well-modulated voice. He played the stiff-upper-lip Englishman in at least 100 outings. However, he is probably best-remembered as Alfred, the butler, on Batman (1966) though he also appeared in Hitchcock's MARNIE (1964) and as James Garner's leader Col. Peter McLean in the marvelous hit 36 HOURS (1965). Though Napier always appeared to be old, he wasn't, and lived to be 85-years-old, passing away in 1988.- Milton Parsons was born on 19 May 1904 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Hidden Hand (1942), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947). He died on 15 May 1980 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.A gaunt, skeletal-faced character actor he portrayed a series of coroners, morticians, eccentrics and crazy guys; he is listed as "First Axe-Murderer" in the Lew Ayres/Laraine Day starrer FINGERS AT THE WINDOW (1942). He also appeared in Broadway plays between 1930 and 1950. He guested on many of the major episodic TV series of the 1950's and 1960's. His was a face you didn't easily forget--especially in your nightmares.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Chances are you've seen his imposing character face scores of times but couldn't place the name. Colorado-born actor Walter Sande was one of those stern, heavyset character actors in Hollywood everyone recognized but no one could identify.
Born in Denver on July 9, 1906, Sande showed an early passion for music as a youth and by his college years managed to start his own band. This led to a job as musical director for 20th Century-Fox's theater chain, which in turn led to acting in films beginning in 1937. Usually providing atmospheric bits with no billing, he made an initial impression in serial cliffhangers as a third-string heavy with the popular The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940) and Sky Raiders (1941). His first top featured role, however, would come with The Iron Claw (1941) as Jack "Flash" Strong, a photographer who--uncharacteristically for Walter--served as a comic sidekick to the serial's hero. Best of all would be his role in another serial as Red Pennington, the amusing sidekick to Don Winslow of the Navy (1942). he repeated his role again in Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (1943), the successful sequel. The role of Pennington sparked a long and steady supporting career in movies, usually a step or two behind Hollywood's elite on camera, which included Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944) (prominently featured as the fisherman who tries to cheat Bogie), Gary Cooper in Along Came Jones (1945), Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia (1946), Charlton Heston in Dark City (1950) and Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), among hundreds of others. He also lent an an authoritative presence to classic sci-fi films such as Red Planet Mars (1952), The War of the Worlds (1953) and Invaders from Mars (1953), and also had a recurring featured part in the 1940s "Boston Blackie" film series playing Detective Matthews alongside Chester Morris' former thief-turned-crime hero.
A prolific supporting player during the "golden age" of TV, Sande worked on nearly every popular western and crime show that aired throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He had a regular series role on The Adventures of Tugboat Annie (1957) as Capt. Horatio Bullwinkle, Annie's tugboat rival, and a recurring one as Inger Stevens' Swedish father, Lars "Papa" Holstrum, on The Farmer's Daughter (1963).
Walter Sande died of a heart attack in 1971 at age 65.A beefy, usually genial, presence he portrayed military non-coms, policemen, deputies and sheriffs. He had a face you could place, but not know his name. A sort of anonymous "good guy." He did appear in the Bogart/Bacall film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) and a sheriff in three episodes of Steve McQueen's only TV series "Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1956). His first outing in that series he played Sheriff Pat Garret, the man who shot his close acquaintance Billy The Kid. He also guest-starred in most of the TV westerns of the 50's and 60's.- Short, dapper Jay Novello specialized in playing ethnic types, sometimes Spanish, Greek or Mexican but usually Italian--not surprising, since his parents were Italian immigrants and he grew up speaking the language before he learned English. Born in Chicago in 1904, he came from a very diverse neighborhood and, in addition to speaking Italian and English, also picked up a working knowledge of German and Greek. He got a job acting with various theater companies in the Chicago area, and his facility with languages got him work in radio as a dialect specialist. He soon moved to Hollywood and got work in the radio industry there, and made his film debut in an uncredited bit part in 1930. He played in everything from westerns to action pictures to serials (in one of which, The Adventures of Smilin' Jack (1943), he played a Japanese spy!). He did much television work, and one of his best known roles was as the scheming Mayor Lugato in the Ernest Borgnine comedy series McHale's Navy (1962). He died of lung cancer in North Hollywood in 1982.His over-120 movie & TV roles began at age 25 in the 1930 Seral THE JADE BOX. He played a dastardly, but uncredited, cultist. Actually, Jay Novello (born Michael Romano) was a small, dark-haired, dapper and mustachioed gentleman who mainly specialized in playing Italians. Probably because his parents were Italian immigrants. One of his best-known roles was in THE MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA (1952).