The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Bit Players

  • George H Reed

    George Henry Reed (1866-1952) got a strong start in films when he played Jim in the 1920 version of Huckleberry Finn. But the opportunities for Black actors were few at that time and, apart from his appearance as Aaron in the all-Black Green Pastures (1936), Reed was thereafter restricted to a very narrow range of small parts.

    The restrictions and stereotyping faced by Black performers are demonstrated in Reed’s three 1930 Metro musicals, They Learned About Women, Montana Moon and Love in the Rough. He played a train porter in all three of them. 

  • John Kelly

    John F Kelly (1901-47) was an actor whose film appearances fluctuated between small featured roles and walk ons. For instance, he went from playing an uncredited henchman in Everybody’s Doing It to being the not-so-bright Elmer in Bringing Up Baby (both 1938).

    Kelly’s MGM musical appearances were all uncredited: They Learned About Women, San Francisco and Born to Dance.

  • Rosalind Byrne

    Louise Brooks lookalike Rosalind Loretta Mooney (1904-1989) had worked as an extra on hundreds of silent films, when she was given her first small role in Flaming Youth (1923). Unfortunately, her career did not flourish and she never progressed beyond bit parts. 

    Byrne’s final two appearances before retiring in 1930 were in They Learned About Women and Children of Pleasure. 

  • Harry Bernard

    Harry Bernard (1878-1940) was a member of the Mack Sennett comedy stable and a regular collaborator with Laurel and Hardy for Hal Roach. It was in this capacity that he made appearances in The Rogue Song, The Devil’s Brother and The Bohemian Girl. Bernard can also be spotted as a baseball spectator in They Learned About Women. 

  • Robert Milasch

    Robert Emmett Milasch (1885-1954) began his film career in 1903 and appeared in The Great Train Robbery (1903). He had many credited roles through the silent era, but his appearances in sound pictures were almost all uncredited bit parts, which suggests his voice was not up to the task. He was in 140 films after 1929, and in forty of these studio records describe him as ‘Townsman’. The word ‘Barfly’ crops up quite a few times as well.

    Milasch was in three MGM musicals: Chasing Rainbows, The Girl of the Golden West (as a townsman) and Two Sisters from Boston.

  • Eugene Borden

    Parisian Élysée Eugène Prieur-Bardin (1897-1971) emigrated to America as a teenager, but played many Frenchmen (and sundry other continentals) in a fifty-year career. He started out in The Great Secret (1917), a serial with jeopardy and super-villains, and concluded with one of James Coburn’s sixties’ Flint adventures.

    His contributions to MGM musicals, all uncredited, spanned 27 years. They were in Chasing Rainbows, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, The Firefly, Thrill of a Romance, Yolanda and the Thief, On the Town, An American in Paris, Million Dollar Mermaid, Dangerous When Wet, Interrupted Melody, It’s Always Fair Weather and Silk Stockings.

  • George Chandler

    W C Fields’s fans will know George Chandler (1898-1985) as Chester Snavely, the unfortunate youth who drank The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933).

    In his fifty-year career Chandler kept very busy, right up to a final appearance in the Lou Grant TV series. He made credited appearances in two MGM musicals–In Gay Madrid and The Florodora Girl–and also showed up uncredited in Devil-May-Care, Love in the Rough, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Broadway Melody of 1940, Swing Fever and The Pirate.

  • Lionel Belmore

    Lionel Belmore (1867-1953) was 46 when he made his first film, following a successful stage career in his native England. Yet he still managed almost 200 screen appearances, including as the Burgomaster in Frankenstein (1931).

    Belmore was in three MGM musicals: Devil-May-Care (as the innkeeper), The Rogue Song and Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.

  • Jeane Wood

    Despite being minor Hollywood royalty, and unlike her younger sister K T Stevens, Jeane Wood (1909-1987) never progressed as an actor beyond small, usually uncredited roles. As a young woman she appeared in three films directed by her father, Sam Wood. These included the musical It’s a Great Life.

    After a long break, Wood resumed film acting in the 1950s, making an appearance as a maid in The Glass Slipper.

  • Crane Wilbur

    Crane Wilbur (1886-1973) acted in his first film in 1910 and found fame opposite Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1913). He also became a scenarist, and directed his first picture in 1916. His final film as writer-director was House of Women in 1962.

    In 1929 Wilbur wrote a play, Children of Pleasure, which he helped adapt into a musical the following year. He also wrote Lord Byron of Broadway and made an uncredited appearance in It’s a Great Life.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial
RSS
Facebook
X (Twitter)
WhatsApp
Copy link
URL has been copied successfully!