J. M. Kerrigan

Irish actor

Joseph Michael Kerrigan (16 December 1884 – 29 April 1964) was an Irish actor.

Joseph Michael Kerrigan was born on 16 December 1884 in Dublin, which was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at that time. He studied at Belvedere College and worked as a newspaperman.

In 1907, Kerrigan joined the Irish National Theatre, later known as the Abbey Players. His first screen appearance was in Food of Love, one of six silent films he did in 1916. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935, having been recruited along with several other Abbey performers to appear in John Ford's The Informer. In this film and in Ford's The Long Voyage Home, he played similar roles, that of a leech who attaches himself to men until they run out of money. Perhaps his best known role was in The General Died at Dawn, wherein he plays a character named Leach, a sinister thief who, holding a gun on Cooper, says: "I may be fat, but I'm agile." He had little screen time in films in which he had minor roles, such as the First Drayman in Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor. One of his more recognizable roles was in Gone with the Wind (1939), in which he played John Gallegher, the seemly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labor into "co operation". He appeared in Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), the film version of Jules Verne's novel, in a minor role at the beginning of the film. In a 1946 attempt to reach Broadway, Kerrigan starred as the discombobulated leprechaun Jackeen J. O'Malley in the show Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley, based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip. The play was unsuccessful, completing only four performances. Kerrigan made his final Broadway appearance later that year, however, in Guthrie McClintic's revival of The Playboy of the Western World, this time playing Michael James Flaherty. Over his career, he had roles in 114 short and feature length motion pictures, and between 1952 and 1960 he appeared in episodes of 15  different TV series. Kerrigan died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964, aged 79. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Blvd.