Oscar Profile #300: Gene Lockhart

Born July 18, 1891 in London, Ontario, Canada to concert singer John Coates Lockhart and his wife, Ellen Mary Lockhart, Edwin Eugene (Gene) Lockhart was singing and dancing professionally from the age of 7. Later a concert singer in touring productions with Beatrice Lillie, he went to New York with his mother’s encouragement and made his Broadway debut in the musical The Riviera Girl in 1917. He later traveled with the musical, The Pierrot Players for which he wrote the lyrics to the songs composed by Ernest Seitz which included the standard “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise”, one of many popular songs he wrote. He later made his film debut in a minor role in the 1922 version of Smilin’ Through.

Lockhart married actress Kathleen Arthur in 1924, who thereafter became known professionally as Kathleen Lockhart. Their daughter, June Lockhart, was born in 1925. He became a major star creating the role of Uncle Sid in Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! opposite George M. Cohan. Wallace Beery got his role in the 1935 film version opposite Lionel Barrymore in Cohan’s. Lockhart went to Hollywood in key supporting roles, reaching an early pinnacle with eleven films in 1938 including Of Human Hearts, Algiers (for which he received his only Oscar nomination) and the perennial favorite, A Christmas Carol.

In an impressive 33 films in the years from 1939 through 1943, he stood out in such classics as Alexander Graham Bell, His Girl Friday, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Meet John Doe, The Sea Wolf, The Devil and Daniel Webster, They Died With Their Boots On, Forever and a Day, Hangmen Also Die! and Madame Curie. He was memorable in one of signature mean roles in the 1944 Oscar winner, Going My Way and numerous other films throughout the remainder of the decade, including The House on 92nd Street, Miracle on 34th Street, Apartment for Peggy and Down to the Sea in Ships. In 1949 he replaced Lee J. Cobb as the lead in the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman.

Lockhart augmented his still busy screen career with an equally busy career in TV dramas during the 1950s in which his films included I’d Climb the Highest Mountain, Carousel, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and Jeanne Eagels.

Gene Lockhart died of a coronary thrombosis on March 31, 1957 at 65. His wife, Kathleen Lockhart (The Glenn Miller Story), died on February 17, 1983 at 83. Their daughter, June Lockhart (TV’s Lassie and Lost in Space), is still making movies at 91, as is their grand-daughter, Anne Lockhart, at 62. Anne’s husband, Assistant Director Adam C. Taylor, who was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 27, was the son of actor Buck Taylor and the grandson of actor Dub Taylor. Their children have appeared in films with their mother, making them the fifth generation on their mother’s side and fourth on their father’s to enter show business.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ALGIERS (1938), directed by John Cromwell

Producer Walter Wanger’s version of Detective Ashelbé’s novel Pépé le Moko is generally considered a remake of the Julien Duvivier’s 1937 French version, not released in the U.S. until 1941, but it is actually a different film from the same source material. While most critics prefer Jean Gabin’s take on the elusive jewel thief in the French version, audiences and critics of the day loved Charles Boyer’s Oscar nominated take on the character. The film was also nominated for Best Art Direction, Cinematography (by the great James Wong Howe) and for Lockhart’s supporting turn as a cowardly weasel.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938), directed by Edward L. Marin

Oscar may have preferred Lockhart’s cowardly weasel in Algiers, but generations of fans remember him more fondly as Bob Cratchit in the same year’s iteration of Dickens’ beloved Christmas classic. It’s the only film in which he acted with both his wife Kathleen Lockhart as Mrs. Cratchit and daughter June Lockhart as one of their children. In addition to the Lockharts, the film boasts excellent performances form Reginald Owen as Scrooge, Leo G. Carroll as Marley’s Ghost, Ann Rutherford as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Terry Kilburn who rides Lockhart’s shoulder as Tony Tim.

HANGMEN ALSO DIE! (1943), directed by Frtiz Lang

This then timely film was the first of now 39 films about the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect behind the Reich’s Final Solution and the third in command behind Hitler and Himmler. Tense and exciting, Brian Donlevy as an undercover resistance fighter, Walter Brennan as a Czech professor and Anna Lee as his daughter were the stars, but it’s Lockhart as the collaborationist who names 400 Czech citizens to be taken into custody and shot but is himself framed for the murder, who walks away with acting honors. This was the best of his cowardly weasel roles and he plays it to the hilt.

MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947), directed by George Seaton

This was Lockhart as most fans liked to see him, as the judge presiding over the trial of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn). A career politician, his character has some telling scenes with crony William Frawley and some wonderful family interplay with his wife and grandchildren before declaring Kris Kringle is Santa Claus. Gwenn, in his Oscar winning role, Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, Thelma Ritter, Jack Albertson and Alvin Greenman in uncredited roles are all quite wonderful in this Christmas classic, and so is Lockhart in what is probably the role most people have seen him in to this day.

CAROUSEL (1956), directed by Henry King

Lockhart, who started his career as a child singer, is not called upon to sing a single note in the film version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s glorious musical. Instead, he plays the dual roles of the heavenly starmaker and the beloved town doctor who speaks at the high school graduation ceremony that concludes the film. He does, however, get to introduce the anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” sung by Shirley Jones, Claramae Turner and the graduating class as Gordon MacRae watches his daughter (Susan Luckey) graduate. It would have been a nice touch for them to have let him sing a chorus or two.