Thomas Aloysius Kennedy (1886-1965) had a face that bore testament to his first career as a heavyweight boxer. It was a face that brought him a fifty-year career as a character actor and appearances in more than 400 films and television programmes.
Kennedy made his first screen appearance in 1915 in The Lamb, a Douglas Fairbanks comedy-western. He later played First Officer Gibson, in hot pursuit of the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business (1931). He was the gangster Slim Murphy in 42nd Street and appeared regularly as Gahagan in the Torchy Blane series (“What a day! What a day!”).
Right at the end of his career, Kennedy was one of Spencer Tracy’s colleagues in the Santa Rosita Police Department in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).
Kennedy made two uncredited appearances in Metro musicals in the 1930s: Flying High and Hollywood Party.
