Уоллес Форд: Жизнь и карьера актера

English American actor (1898–1966)

Wallace Ford (born Samuel Grundy Jones; 12 February 1898 – 11 June 1966) was an English born naturalized American vaudevillian, stage performer and screen actor. Usually playing wise cracking characters, he combined a tough but friendly faced demeanor with a small but powerful, stocky physique.

He was born Samuel Grundy Jones in Bolton, Lancashire, England, into a working class family of limited means. At the age of three, he was placed by his uncle and aunt, in whose care he had been, into a Barnardo's orphanage home, since they were unable to maintain his upkeep along with their own several children. When he was seven, he and other children from similar backgrounds were shipped to Canada to be found new homes with farming foster families as a part of the British Empire's ongoing programme to populate the territory. Samuel was adopted by a family in Manitoba. He was ill treated and became a serial runaway, being resettled several times with different families by the Canadian authorities. According to his own account, at the age of 11 he ran away for the last time and joined a vaudeville traveling troupe touring Canada called the Winnipeg Kiddies, from which he acquired his initial training as a performer. In 1914, 16 year old Samuel and another youth named Wallace Ford decided to head south to the United States to seek their fortunes, riding a freight train illicitly. During the trip, Ford was killed beneath the wheels of a train. Later, Samuel adopted as his stage name the name of his dead traveling companion.

Following his service as a trooper in the army at Fort Riley, Kansas, with the United States Cavalry during World War I, Ford became a successful Broadway performer through the Roaring Twenties, appearing in multiple productions, including the lead role in the Broadway smash hit Abie's Irish Rose. In motion pictures, he made his credited debut with Possessed in 1931, appearing with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, and the next year he was given the lead in Metro Goldwyn Mayer's Freaks, directed by Tod Browning. Ford went on to have an extensive career over 30 years, appearing in more than 150 films, with lead roles in the 1930s and '40s in Hollywood B movies such as The Rogues' Tavern (1936), Murder by Invitation (1941), and Roar of the Press (1941) and supporting roles in larger feature films such as The Lost Patrol (1934), The Informer (1935), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Spellbound (1945), and Dead Reckoning (1947). In 1938, he returned to the Broadway stage to play the role of George in the original production of Of Mice and Men.

Date Title Role Notes 29 August – September 1921 The Poppy God Higgins Hudson Theatre, New York 6 March–?, 1922 Broken Branches Arthur Weldon 39th Street Theatre, New York 22 October – November 1923 Nobody's Business Oliver Pratt Klaw Theatre, New York 14 January – February 1924 Gypsy Jim Tom Blake 49th Street Theatre, New York 31 March – May 1924 Nancy Ann Dan Dennis 49th Street Theatre, New York 1 September 1924 – June 1925 Pigs Thomas Atkins Jr. Little Theatre, New York 14 January – March 1929 Gypsy Mac Klaw Theatre, New York 14 October – November 1929 The Nut Farm Willie Barton Klaw Theatre, New York 23 November 1937 – May 1938 Of Mice and Men George Music Box Theatre, New York 26 December 1939 – 6 January 1940 Kindred Dermot O'Regan (Prologue) Maxine Elliott Theatre, New York

Year Title Role Notes 1953 "Outlaw's Reckoning" (series debut) 1953 Goodyear Television Playhouse "The Happy Rest" 1953 Armstrong Circle Theatre "The Marshal of Misery Gulch" 1954 Father Knows Best Nick "The Christmas Story” 1954 Inner Sanctum Photographer "Dark of the Night" 1955 Ford Theatre Talker "Sunday Mourn" 1955 Damon Runyon Theatre Lt. Harrigan "Tobias the Terrible" 1957 William Markham "The Jim Thompson Case" 1958 Playhouse 90 Mule Rogers "The Last Man" 1959–61 Marshal Herk Lamson 1960Tales of Wells Fargo"Dead Man's Street"F. X. Murphy, Marshal 1964 The Andy Griffith Show Roger Hanover