John Anthony Indrisano (1905-68) was, as Johnny Indrisano, a successful, though never champion, boxer. After retiring from the ring, he spent the remainder of his life as a character actor in over 120 films and scores of television programmes.
Indrisano also worked as a stunt performer and technical adviser on pictures with a boxing element, including Body and Soul (1947), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and various Joe Palooka episodes. He apparently coached Spencer Tracy for the famous fight with Ernest Borgnine in Bad Day at Black Rock (1956).
Films in which Indrisano acted include Murder, My Sweet (1947), The Set-Up (1949), Body and Soul, Force of Evil (1949) and Ocean’s Eleven (1960). He also appeared in three Elvis Presley pictures, including King Creole (1958) and It Happened at the World Fair (1963).
He was in six MGM musicals: Student Tour, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, It’s Always Fair Weather, Guys and Dolls, Jailhouse Rock and Bells Are Ringing.
Elizabeth J Flowers (1898-1984) was dubbed ‘the Queen of Hollywood Extras’, but it is unlikely the exact details of her career will ever be known. Every reference source cites a different number of appearances, ranging from IMDb’s 1100+ down to the AFI’s verified 238 feature films. The true number is undoubtedly somewhere in between, and probably more towards the upper than the lower end.
The problem is that, while she sometimes had specific roles, a great deal of the time she worked as a background extra and her name was not included in studio records.
Flowers’s first verified appearance was a credited role in the aptly-titled Hollywood in 1923. Thereafter, some of the highlights of her long career include It Happened One Night (1934 [she was a regular in Frank Capra’s films]), Dames (1934), Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Holiday (1938), Love Affair (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), Double Indemnity (1944), The Big Clock (1948), Alias Nick Beal (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and, her final film, Move Over, Darling (1963).
Online sources suggest Flowers appeared in 46 MGM musicals. If true, this would mean she worked over 20 per cent of the studio’s musical output. The films are: Hollywood Party, Student Tour, A Night at the Opera, Nobody’s Baby, A Day at the Races, The Great Waltz, Sweethearts, Honolulu, Broadway Melody of 1940, Ziegfeld Girl, Lady Be Good, Ship Ahoy, I Married an Angel, Best Foot Forward, Broadway Rhythm, Music for Millions, Till the Clouds Roll By, On an Island With You, A Date With Judy, The Barkleys of Broadway, Neptune’s Daughter, Nancy Goes to Rio, The Duchess of Idaho, The Toast of New Orleans, Royal Wedding, The Great Caruso, Rich, Young and Pretty, Show Boat, Texas Carnival, Singin’ in the Rain, Because You’re Mine, Small Town Girl, The Band Wagon, Latin Lovers, Torch Song, Easy to Love, The Student Prince, Athena, Interrupted Melody, Guys and Dolls, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Meet Me in Las Vegas, The Opposite Sex, Ten Thousand Bedrooms, This Could be the Night and Jailhouse Rock.
Bess Flowers was a charter member of the Screen Extras Guild.
The figures of 350+ film and TV appearances by Harry Wilson (1897-1978) is made more impressive by the fact that Wilson worked almost entirely in the sound era, when the turnover of pictures was not so great as in the silent days.
British-born Wilson dubbed himself ‘the ugliest man in movies’ (though there was competition), and he was many studios’ go-to actor for convicts and criminal henchmen. He features with Mike Mazurki in Some Like it Hot (1959) as one of George Raft’s goons.
Wilson appeared uncredited in no fewer than fifteen MGM musicals, across more than thirty years and four decades. In the 1930s he made A Lady’s Morals, The Bohemian Girl, A Day at the Races, Let Freedom Ring and The Wizard of Oz (as a Winkie Guard). In the 40s, Wilson was in Go West, Born to Sing, Swing Fever, Luxury Liner and Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
His 1950s appearances were in Million Dollar Mermaid, It’s Always Fair Weather, Guys and Dolls and Merry Andrew. And finally, in 1963, Wilson played a roustabout in Billy Rose’s Jumbo.
As if Wilson was not busy enough making his own films, he worked for fifteen years as Wallace Beery’s stand-in.
