Roscoe Blevel Ates (1895-1962) was working in vaudeville as a comedian when he made his screen debut in 1929’s South Sea Rose.
The following year, after an uncredited appearance in Marianne and a small part in Love in the Rough, Ates had a strong supporting role in King Vidor’s Billy the Kid (1930). He appeared in many further westerns, including a run as a character named Soapy Jones for PRC.
Ates had a speech impediment as a child, which he revived to good effect in a number of pictures playing stuttering characters.
Roscoe Ates’s other Metro musicals were Ziegfeld Girl and Meet Me in Las Vegas.
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