Born November 11, 1899, โHollywoodโs Irishman in Residenceโ, William Joseph Patrick โPatโ OโBrien was American through and through having been born in Milkwaukee, Wisconsin to first generation American parents. All four of his grandparents, however, came from Ireland. As a boy, he wanted to become a priest and a cop before settling on acting, but often played both priests and cops on screen.
OโBrien attended Marquette University with Spencer Tracy who became a life-long friend. The two joined the U.S. Navy together where they met Jack Benny. It was OโBrien who, as a result of the audience booing violinist Benny on stage, walked up to him and whispered in his ear to put down the violin and talk to the audience. Thatโs how Benny the comedian was born.
Mentored, along with Tracy, by actor James Gleason, OโBrien spent a decade on Broadway before making his screen debut in 1930. The following year he played his first starring role in The Front Page. He married actress Eloise Taylor with whom he would have four children, three of them adopted, that same year.
It was in 1934 that OโBrien began his nine film association with James Cagney, co-starring with him in Here Comes the Navy. The following year found OโBrien in one of his best dramatic roles in Oil for the Lamps of China opposite Josephine Hutchinson. He then reteamed with Cagney in The Irish in Us opposite rising star Olivia de Havilland. With Cagney again in 1938โs Angels with Dirty Faces, the film would bring both actors the best notices of their careers to date and an Oscar nomination for Cagney.
OโBrien had his best known starring role as legendary Notre Dame football player and coach Knute Rockne in 1940โs Knute Rockne, All American. Subsequent 1940s successes included His Butlerโs Sister, Crack-Up, Riff-Raff, Fighting Father Dunne and The Boy with Green Hair.
In the 1950s OโBrien interspersed TV work with big screen performances in The People vs. OโHara, Jubilee Trail, Ring of Fear, The Last Hurrah and Some Like It Hot. Later big screen appearances were rare but he did occasionally have a memorable role in such films as The Over-the-Hill Gang, The Skyโs the Limit, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, The End and his last, Ragtime, which was also Cagneyโs last. On TV, he won a pair of 1974 Emmys for his performance in an episode of The ABC Afternoon Playbreak.
One of Hollywoodโs most prolific storytellers, he often made personal appearances on TV, the last being All Star Party for Burt Reynolds which aired after his death.
Pat OโBrien died of a heart attack on October 15, 1983, less than a month before his 84th birthday.
ESSENTIAL FILMS
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938), directed by Michael Curtiz
Pat OโBrien had his first brush with Oscar when his first starring film, 1931โs The Front Page was nominated for Best Picture along with its director Lewis Milestone and OโBrienโs co-star, Adolphe Menjou. He had his second brush when this film repeated the pattern with nominations for Best Picture, Director and co-star James Cagney. Frequent co-star Cagney won the New York Film Critics Award played a gangster to OโBrienโs priest, but it was OโBrienโs old pal Spencer Tracy who won the Oscar for playing real life priest Father Flanagan in Boys Town.
KNUTE ROCKNE, ALL AMERICAN (1940), directed by Lloyd Bacon
OโBrien had his most popular starring role as the famed Notre Dame football player and coach in tis box office smash and staple of 1950s TV broadcasts. Johnny Sheffield, Tarzanโs โboyโ plays Rockne as a 7-year-old. Without Cagney as his co-star this was supposed to be all OโBrien, but there was another scene stealer about in this one, future U.S. President Ronald Reagan in one of his own best remembered roles as George Gipp, the dying football player for whom the team sets about to โwin one for the Gipper!โ, a phrase which followed Reagan for the rest of his life. Gale Page and Donald Crisp co-star.
THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948), directed by Joseph Losey
This was Loseyโs breakthrough film and the only important film he was able to make before being blacklisted. An indictment of intolerance, Dean Stockwell plays the 12-year-old title character whose hair turns green after he learns that his parents died during the war. Shuttled from family member to family member he finally finds a connection with OโBrien as a retired vaudevillian, now making a modest living as a singing waiter. Stockwell calls him โGrampโ even though heโs not his real grandfather. This was one of the first films to say โitโs OK to be differentโ. Stockwell and OโBrien are both unforgettable..
THE LAST HURRAH (1958), directed by John Ford
Spencer Tracy and Pat OโBrien were lifelong friends, but this was their only film together as Tracyโs career was mainly with MGM and OโBrienโs was mainly with Warner Bros. Tracy is the star here as the old-time Boston mayor running for his last election and OโBrien is his chief crony. There are supporting performances of real distinction by the likes of James Gleason (Tracy and OโBrienโs mentor), Donald Crisp, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Jane Darwell, Ed Brphy, Anna Lee and others, but it the interaction of Tracy and Jeffrey Hunter as his nephew and Tracy and OโBrien as old pals that register the strongest.
RAGTIME (1981), directed by Milos Forman
Formanโs film of E.L. Doctorowโs massive historical novel was generally panned, but not severely enough to keep it from amassing eight Oscar nominations including supporting nods for Howard E. Rollins, Jr. and Elizabeth McGovern. The film garnered attention mainly for featuring 82-year-old James Cagney in his first film in twenty-three years as the New York Police Commissioner in what was basically a glorified cameo. This was OโBrienโs ninth film with Cagney, but the first in which they did not have any scenes together. The slightly younger, but much more agile OโBrien played a wily defense attorney.
PAT OโBRIEN AND OSCAR
- No nominations, no wins.
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