Steve Franken: He’s Everywhere

Today we honor the character comedy contribution of the late actor Steve Franken (1932-2012). The son of a Hollywood agent, Franken had an easy entree into film and tv roles, although he never flew higher than recurring and guest shots on tv, and bits parts on screens big and small. But he was instantly recognizable, almost walys showcased prominently and to advantage.

His first recurring part was as a snooty rich kid on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, although that was before my time. But I grew up watching him in other things. His smallish stature and large staring eyes made him perfect for playing callow, sheltered and privileged young men: mama’s boys, nephews, clueless heirs, and psychiatry patients.

He had a memorable and prominent turn as the drunken butler in Blake Edwards’ The Party (1968):

He played several characters in 7 different episodes of Bewitched including Cousin Henry and Bruce, the Loch Ness Monster.

He’s in five episodes of Love American Style, two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (as one of Mary’s serious boyfriends). He had a great scene in Westworld (1973) as the terrified technician Richard Benjamin encounters in the desert.

He’s in the “Chopper” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He’s a shrink in the spooky 1975 movie The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. He plays Molly Picon’s son in Murder on Flight 502. He’s a perp in two episodes of Barney Miller. He’s in two Jerry Lewis movies: Which Way to the Front? (1970) and Hardly Working (1981). The Curse of the Pink Panther (1983). On and on, in places expected and unexpected throughout the decades. One of his later credits was in an episodes of Angels and Demons (2009).

It’s Steve Franken’s birthday today. And to my astonishment, yes, he actually is Al Franken’s cousin.

Arthur Pat West: Pudgy Little Character

April 19 is the birthday of Arthur Pat West (1888-1944).

Today West is best remembered among vaudeville fans for his 1929 Vitaphone short Ship Ahoy, in which the stout little man comes out in a sailor suit, does a rather rude comedy monologue and sings a couple of funny songs while pretending to play the guitar.

Originally from Paducah, Kentucky, West (sometimes billed just as Arthur or Pat) had been in a team called Arthur and Lucille West with his wife Lucille Harmon. In the ’20s, he was cast in a number of Broadway shows: the Fanchon and Marco musical revue Sun-Kist (1921), The Ziegfeld Follies of 1923, Paradise Alley (1924), and Captain Jinks (1925-1926) with Joe E. Brown. 

After Ship Ahoy, West performed in at least one other Vitaphone Gates of Happiness (1930) and remained in Hollywood where he worked as an (often uncredited) bit player for the rest of his life. Initially, he was in Columbia comedy shorts and B movies, but he worked constantly and in the late ’30s through the ’40s he wound up in numerous classics, usually playing a bartender, waiter or similar kind of character. You can see him in Bringing Up Baby (1938), You Can’t Take It With You (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Babes in Arms (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Great McGinty (1940), The Bank Dick (1940), Sullivan’s Travels (1940), Ball of Fire (1941), The Outlaw (1943), To Have and Have Not (1944), and Road to Utopia (1945), among dozens of other pictures. Keep an eye out for him!

To find out more about vaudeville history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. For more on early  film please see my book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

Happy Birthday, Dick Miller

Well, someone else has a birthday today — prolific character actor Dick Miller (b. 1928).

I first knew Miller from his role as the man who eats flowers in Roger Corman’s original The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which, for a time, was my favorite movie. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered A Bucket of Blood (1959), also by Corman and Charles B. Griffith, in which Miller starred. But most of Miller’s role were of the walk-on variety.

Bronx born Miller had started out playing bit parts for Corman’s low budget horror, sci-fi and delinquent pictures around 1956. He worked for Corman and American International Pictures in scores of films, including The Terror (1963), The Wild Angels (1966), The Trip (1967) and Big Bad Mama (1974). He also got story credit on two pictures in these years: the low budget western Four Rode Out and Jerry Lewis’s WWII comedy Which Way to the Front? (both 1970). As Corman and his alumni grew more famous and mainstream, Miller continued to play bit parts in their films. Thus he is in almost every film ever made by Joe Dante, including The Howling (1980), the Gremlins films, Innerspace (1987) and The ‘Burbs (1989), and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York (1987) and After Hours (1985). Quentin Tarantino cast him in Pulp Fiction (1994) but most of his scenes wound up on the cutting room floor.

He was recently the subject of a documentary called That Guy Dick Miller (2014). I highly recommend it! Dick Miller is 87 years old at the moment and still working! See his long list of credits here.