Julia Griffith (1880-1961) started out in the theatre, but became a perennial bit-part player in Hollywood, from her debut as ‘town gossip’ in 1923 to her last appearance as ‘committee woman’ twenty years later. She was usually uncredited.
Griffith can be spotted in four MGM musicals. She was an audience member at the opera in Call of the Flesh, and then a party guest in Hollywood Party. She was back in the audience for A Night at the Opera and later played a committee woman in Girl Crazy.
Sidney D’Albrook (1886-1948) notched up over 170 film appearances. He started making shorts in 1914, but his first feature was The Gilded Cage (1916). (I draw the last-named film to attention only because it features a character called Lesbia the Goose Girl.) He also appeared as Ambrose, the brother-in-law, in Hal Roach’s series of shorts about the Spat family.
When the silent period came to a close, most of D’Albrook’s appearances were uncredited. These included five Metro musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Night at the Opera, The Great Waltz, I Married an Angel and The Unfinished Dance.
Born in Germany, raised in the UK, Leo Weiss (1873-1948) made at least 500 screen appearances in a career lasting a little over thirty years.
After working in British music halls, White travelled to America and was working in films by 1911. He eventually settled at Essanay Studios, working regularly with Charles Chaplin. He also featured in Wallace Beery’s Sweedie shorts. By 1920, he had already made over 120 films.
Despite his background in comedy, White ventured into more serious fare during the 1920s, with appearances in Blood and Sand (1922), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927).
White was in eight MGM musicals (all uncredited). He started out in The Florodora Girl, followed by Call of the Flesh, The Devil’s Brother, Broadway to Hollywood, Stage Mother and The Cat and the Fiddle. He was one of the hirsute Russian aviators in A Night at the Opera, and bowed out with Broadway Melody of 1938.
Later, White played the barber in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) and Emile the waiter in Casablanca (1942).
Mary Jane Irving (1913-83) made over sixty screen appearances, despite retiring when she was 25. This was owing to the fact that she made her debut at the age of 3 and had a busy career as a child actor. In her twenties, she also worked as Janet Gaynor’s stand-in.
Irving was 16 when she played Lawrence Gray’s sister in The Florodora Girl. A year or so later, she was one of the students in Student Tour.
Although born in Camberwell, Philip Sleeman (1891-1953) spent much of his film career playing Arabs and other eastern characters with names like Sheik Abdullah Pasha.
Sleeman made two appearances in Metro musicals, on both occasions having a good time. He was a patron in a cantina in In Gay Madrid and partying on the zeppelin in Madam Satan.
Frankie Genardi (1922-2010) was a child actor who made his debut, aged five, in Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven (1927). He retired at seventeen.
Genardi’s two Metro musicals were The Rogue Song and New Moon.
Horace Allen Morgan (1892-1956) was a studio electrician who became an actor when director Romaine Fielding decided he needed a “fat boy” for a character part in Teasing a Tornado (1915). He went on to be a regular supporting player in silent comedies, working with Buster Keaton on Three Ages (1923) and Sherlock Jr (1924). He played similar roles to Oliver Hardy in his pre-Laurel days.
Morgan was in two Metro musicals. He was in The Rogue Song, and then actually appeared with Oliver Hardy in the uncredited role of Old King Cole in Babes in Toyland.
Wallace Archibald MacDonald (1891-1978) was a Canadian actor who pursued a successful career in Hollywood from 1912. The quality of his roles deteriorated after the introduction of sound, so he moved into producing in 1937. The films he made were ‘B’ pictures, but one of them was the excellent My Name is Julia Ross (1945), directed by Joseph H Lewis.
MacDonald the actor cropped up in two MGM musicals. He was Hassan in The Rogue Song and first mate of the zeppelin in Madam Satan.
British actor Herbert Prior (1867-1954) made his screen debut in 1907. He had featured roles in hundreds of silent features and shorts, including as Mr Jaggers in Great Expectations (1917), but the prominence of his parts declined after the introduction of sound.
Prior was in Children of Pleasure, Flying High and Student Tour.
Harry Franklin Price (1886-1964) was a stage actor who made uncredited appearances in around 300 pictures, including scores of low-budget westerns.
Price was in two MGM musicals: Children of Pleasure and A Night at the Opera.
