Oscar Profile #561: Ed Begley

Born March 25, 1901in Harford, Connecticut to immigrant Irish parents, Ed Begley was first attracted to the theatre at age 9 when he performed on stage at the Hartford Globe Theatre. He ran away from home two years later, while in the 5th grade to pursue acting but worked in numerous jobs until his Broadway debut at 16 in Going Up in 1917, going with the play to London the following year. He married first wife Amanda Huff in 1922 with whom he would have two children.

Begley had his first starring role as radio’s Charlie Chan from 1944-1948. In 1947, he had his first starring role on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons in the role that Edward G. Robinson would play on screen the following year.

The actor made his film debut in Elia Kazan’s 1947 film, Boomerang! . He continued to appear in memorable supporting roles in such films as 1948’s Sitting Pretty and Sorry, Wrong Number, 1949’s It Happens Every Spring and The Great Gatsby, 1950’s Stars in My Crown and Dark City, 1951’s On Dangerous Ground, and 1952’s Boots Malone. Actor Ed Begley, Jr. was born out of wedlock to Allene Jeanne Sanders in 1949. Amanda Huff died in 1956.

Back on Broadway, Begley won a Tony for Best Featured Actor for his performance in 1955’s Inherit the Wind in the role that Fredric March would later play in the 1960 film version. When co-star Paul Muni left the show, he assumed the role Spencer Tracy would play in the film. During this time, he had three major supporting roles in 1956’s Patterns, 1957’s 12 Angry Men and 1959’s Odds Against Tomorrow. He married second wife Dorothy Reeves in 1961.

Begley won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for 1962’s Sweet Bird of Youth. It would be his only nomination. Divorced from Reeves in 1963, he married third wife Helen Jordan with whom he would have another child, that same year.

Post-Oscar, Begley had memorable roles in 1964’s The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1966’s The Oscar, 1967’s Warning Shot, and 1968’s Hang ‘em High and Wild in the Streets.

In 1969, Begley returned to Broadway for the last time as part of the all-star revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with Henry Fonda as the Stage Manager, Harvey Stephens and Elizabeth Hartman as George and Emily, John Randolph and Irene Tedrow as the Webbs, and Begley and Mildred Natwick as the Gibbses.

1970’s The Dunwich Horror and 1971’s The Road to Salina were released posthumously. Ed Begley died on April 28, 1970. He was 69.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

12 ANGRY MEN (1957), directed by Sidney Lumet

This powerful film was one of Henry Fonda’s three favorites of all the films he made, the others being The Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident. As in those two, he was a principled loner who in this case is the single holdout in a jury tasked with judging the guilt or innocence of a Puerto Rican teenager accused of murdering his father. Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, and Begley are among the eleven jurors voting guilty before Fonda gets them to examine the evidence more closely. Begley plays Juror no. 10, the nastiest of the group who votes guilty simply because of the defendant’s social standing.

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1962), directed by Richard Brooks

This toned-down version of Tennessee Williams’ 1959 Broadway play was filmed with Paul Newman as a small-town lothario turned gigolo who returns to the town he ran away from, with Geraldine Page as his movie star keeper, Rip Torn as the town boss’ son, and Madeleine Sherwood as the boss’ mistress, repeating their stage roles. Begley as the town boss, Shirley Knight as his daughter, Mildred Dunnock as his sister-in-law replaced Sidney Blackmer, Diana Hyland, and Martine Bartlett. Page, Begley, and Knight were nominated for Oscars. Begley, in the nastiest role of his career, won on his only nomination.

THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN (1964), directed by Charles Walters

Begley gets to sing and dance as Debbie Reynolds’ father in this smash hit adaptation of Meredith Willson’s 1960 Broadway musical about the famed survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, previously played by Thelma Ritter in 1953’s Titanic and Tucker McGuire in 1958’s A Night to Remember, and later by Kathy Bates in 1997’s Titanic. Harve Presnell, who created the role of Molly’s husband Johnny “Leadville” Brown, co-stars in the film version with Reynolds and Begley replacing Tammy Grimes and Cameron Prudd’homme. Hermione Baddeley and Martita Hunt co-star.

HANG ‘EM HIGH (1968), directed by Ted Post

Begley was back to playing nasty as the leader of the lynch mob in this popular western starring Clint Eastwood as a man accused by nine men of killing their neighbor and stealing his cattle. They hang him and leave him for dead. Fortunately, a U.S. marshal played by Ben Johnson comes to his recue and brings him in for trial. Eventually, it’s discovered that the man he bought the cattle from was the actual killer. He is then deputized by judge Pat Hingle and goes after the vigilantes. The cast also includes Inger Stevens, Charles McGraw, Ruth White, Bruce Dern, Alan Hale, Jr., Dennis Hopper, and James MacArthur.

THE ROAD TO SALINA (1971), directed by Georges Lautner

Lautner’s twisty neo-noir is famous for both the performances and casual nudity of Mimsy Farmer and Robert Walker, Jr. Rita Hayworth plays the owner/manager of a gas station/restaurant on the titled road who is convinced that Walker is her son who disappeared a few years earlier. Farmer is her daughter. Begley plays the local doctor and Hayworth’s card-playing friend, another rare sympathetic role for the actor in his last film. The film, which was made in both French and English, was barely released in the U.S. three years after it was made. That didn’t occur until more than a year after Begley’s death.