Edward Everett Horton

Edward Everett Horton
Born	(1886-03-18)March 18, 1886 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	Encino, California, U.S.
Other names	E.E. Horton Edward Horton Edward E. Horton
Alma mater	Oberlin College
Occupation	Actor, singer, dancer
Years active	1906–1970
Partner(s)	Gavin Gordon

Edward Everett Horton (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons.

Early life

Horton was born in Brooklyn, twelve years before New York City was consolidated, to Isabella S. (née Diack) and Edward Everett Horton, a compositor for The New York Times. His mother was born in Matanzas, Cuba to Mary Orr and George Diack, immigrants from Scotland. He attended Boys' High School, Brooklyn and Baltimore City College, where he was later inducted into that school's Hall of Fame.

He began his college career at Oberlin College in Ohio. He was asked to leave after an incident where he climbed to the top of the Service Building, and after collecting an audience, threw off a dummy, causing the viewers to think he had jumped. Later, he attended college at Brooklyn Polytechnic and Columbia University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Stage and film career

Horton began his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business (1922), but he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in Beggar on Horseback (1925). In the late 1920s he starred in two-reel silent comedies for Educational Pictures, and made the transition to talking pictures with Educational in 1929. As a stage trained performer, he found more film work easily, and appeared in some of Warner Bros.' early talkies, including The Terror (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929).

Horton initially used his given name, Edward Horton, professionally. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally, reasoning that there might be other actors named Edward Horton, but only one named Edward Everett Horton. Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the time-honored double take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he would smile ingratiatingly and nod in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask.

Horton starred in many comedy features in the 1930s, usually playing a mousy fellow who put up with domestic or professional problems to a certain point, and then finally asserted himself for a happy ending. He is best known, however, for his work as a character actor in supporting roles. These include The Front Page (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Alice in Wonderland (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934, the first of several Astaire/Rogers films in which Horton appeared), Top Hat (1935), Danger - Love at Work (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), Holiday (1938), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). His last role was in the comedy film Cold Turkey (1971), in which his character communicated only through facial expressions.

Horton continued to appear in stage productions, often in summer stock. His performance in the play Springtime for Henry became a perennial in summer theaters.

Radio and television

From 1945-47, Horton hosted radio's Kraft Music Hall. An early television appearance came in the play Sham, shown on The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre on 13 December 1948. During the 1950s, Horton worked in television. One of his best remembered appearances is in an episode of CBS's I Love Lucy, in which he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor, broadcast in 1952. In 1960, he guest starred on ABC's sitcom The Real McCoys as J. Luther Medwick, grandfather of the boyfriend of series character Hassie McCoy (Lydia Reed). In the story line, Medwick clashes with the equally outspoken Grandpa Amos McCoy (played by Walter Brennan).

He remains, however, best known to the Baby Boomer Generation as the venerable narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (1959–61), an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks.

In 1962, he portrayed the character Uncle Ned in three episodes of the CBS television series Dennis the Menace. In 1965, he played the medicine man, Roaring Chicken, in the ABC sitcom F Troop. He echoed this role, portraying Chief Screaming Chicken, on ABC's Batman as a pawn to Vincent Price's Egghead in the villain's attempt to take control of Gotham City.

Death and legacy

Horton died of cancer at age 84 in Encino, California. His remains were interred in Glendale's Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Horton's companion for many years was actor Gavin Gordon, who was 15 years his junior. They both appeared (but shared no scenes) in only one film, Pocketful of Miracles (1961). They also appeared together in at least one play, a 1931 production of Noël Coward's "Private Lives."

In 1925, Horton purchased several acres in the district of Encino and lived on the property at 5521 Amestoy Avenue until his death. He named the estate, which contained Horton's own house and houses for his brother, his sister and their respective families, Belleigh Acres. In the 1950s, the state of California forced Horton to sell a portion of his property for construction of the Ventura Freeway. The freeway construction left a short stump of Amestoy Avenue south of Burbank Boulevard and shortly after his death, the city of Los Angeles renamed that portion Edward Everett Horton Lane.

Edward Everett Horton Lane ends at Burbank Boulevard. On the other side of the boulevard is a bus stop also named for Edward Everett Horton, between bus stops at Aldea and Balboa. There you can catch the 154 which runs weekdays between Tarzana and the Burbank Metrolink station, if you are so inclined

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Horton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard.

Partial filmography

Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1923	Ruggles of Red Gap	Ruggles	Credited as Edward Horton
1924	Helen's Babies	Uncle Harry
1926	La Bohème	Colline
	Poker Faces	Jimmy Whitmore
1929	Ask Dad	Dad	Short film
	Sonny Boy	Crandall Thorpe
	The Hottentot	Sam Harrington
	The Aviator	Robert Steele
1930	Wide Open	Simon Haldane
	Holiday	Nick Potter
1931	Kiss Me Again	René	Alternative title: Toast of the Legion
	Lonely Wives	Richard Smith/Felix, the Great Zero
	The Front Page	Roy V. Bensinger
	Smart Woman	Billy Ross
1932	Trouble in Paradise	François Filiba
1933	Soldiers of the King	Sebastian Marvello
	A Bedtime Story	Victor Dubois
	It's a Boy	Dudley Leake
	Alice in Wonderland	The Hatter
	Design for Living	Max Plunkett
1934	Easy to Love	Eric
	Smarty	Vernon
	Kiss and Make-Up	Marcel Caron
	Ladies Should Listen	Paul Vernet
	The Merry Widow	Ambassador Popoff
	The Gay Divorcee	Egbert Fitzgerald
1935	All the King's Horses	Count Josef von Schlapstaat
	The Devil Is a Woman	Governor Don "Paquitito" Paquito
	Going Highbrow	Augie Winterspoon
	Top Hat	Horace Hardwick
	The Private Secretary	Reverend Robert Spalding
	Little Big Shot	Mortimer
1936	The Man in the Mirror	Jeremy Dilke
1937	Lost Horizon	Alexander P. Lovett
	The King and the Chorus Girl	Count Humbert Evel Bruger
	Shall We Dance	Jeffrey Baird
	Danger - Love at Work	Howard Rogers
	Angel	Graham
	The Great Garrick	Tubby
	Hitting a New High	Lucius B. Blynn
1938	Bluebeard's Eighth Wife	The Marquis De Loiselle
	College Swing	Hubert Dash
	Holiday	Professor Nick Potter
1939	The Gang's All Here	Treadwell
	That’s Right You’re Wrong	Tom Village
1941	Ziegfeld Girl	Noble Sage
	Sunny	Henry Bates
	Here Comes Mr. Jordan	Messenger 7013
1942	The Magnificent Dope	Horace Hunter
	I Married an Angel	Peter
	Springtime in the Rockies	McTavish
1943	Forever and a Day	Sir Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
	Thank Your Lucky Stars	Farnsworth
	The Gang's All Here	Peyton Potter
1944	Arsenic and Old Lace	Mr. Witherspoon
	Brazil	Everett St. John Everett
	The Town Went Wild	Everett Conway
	San Diego, I Love You	Philip McCooley
1945	Lady on a Train	Mr. Haskell
1946	Faithful in My Fashion	Hiram Dilworthy
1947	Down to Earth	Messenger 7013
	Her Husband's Affairs	J. B. Cruikshank
1957	The Story of Mankind	Sir Walter Raleigh
1961	Pocketful of Miracles	Hudgins
1963	One Got Fat	Narrator	Short subject
	It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World	Mr. Dinckler
1964	Sex and the Single Girl	The Chief
1967	The Perils of Pauline	Caspar Coleman
1971	Cold Turkey	Hiram C. Grayson (non-speaking role)	Released posthumously
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949	The Ford Theatre Hour	Sheridan Whiteside	1 episode
1952	I Love Lucy	Mr. Ritter	1 episode
1956	General Electric Theater	Mr. Parkinson	1 episode
1957	Playhouse 90	Mr. Carver	1 episode
1959–1964	The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends	Many Roles	All episodes
1960	The Real McCoys	Mr. Medwick	1 episode
1962	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	Senator Crabtree	1 episode
1962–1963	Dennis the Menace	Ned Matthews	3 episodes
1963	Our Man Higgins	Rawley	"Who's on First?" with Don Drysdale
1965	Burke's Law	Wilbur Starlington	1 episode
1965–1966	F Troop	Roaring Chicken	6 episodes
1966	Batman	Chief Screaming Chicken	episodes 47 and 48
1969	It Takes a Thief	Lord Pelham-Gifford	1 episode
1969	2000 Years Later	Evermore
1970	Nanny and the Professor	Professor Clarendon	1 episode
1971	The Governor & J.J.	Doc Simon	2 episodes

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1952	Musical Comedy Theater	On an Island with You

Listen to

• Interview with Edward Everett Horton (January 8, 1940)

External links

Media related to Edward Everett Horton at Wikimedia Commons

• Edward Everett Horton at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edward Everett Horton at the Internet Movie Database
• Edward Everett Horton at the TCM Movie Database
• Edward Everett Horton on SilentMajority.com (dead link)
• Edward Everett Horton at Virtual History