Henry Branch Bell (1892-1950) had the nickname Handlebar, in reference to his ostentatious moustache.
Bell and his facial hair spent most of their time, from 1920 onwards, on the streets of the Old West, playing a variety of sheriffs, cowpokes and townsmen in literally hundreds of ‘B’ westerns.
His occasional forays into ‘A’ pictures included Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936, as an unemployed farmer), The Buccaneer (1938, as a pirate), They Died with their Boots On (1941) and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944). In John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946), Bell was one of the patrons of the Opera House who was minded to ride the actor Granville around town on a rail.
Hank Bell can be seen (unmistakably) in three Metro musicals: Stage Mother, The Girl of the Golden West and Let Freedom Ring.
