We have five honorees on tap for Saturday.
Actor Al Thompson (1884) appeared in two films with Ginny. He had the role of servant in THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936 then pulled off landing one of those really exclusive parts as a man in the train station in YOUNG TOM EDISON (1940). The lion’s share of Thompson’s 241 credits were in shorts, working with director Jules White in both Stooge and non-stooge films at Columbia. He continued appearing in these films until Columbia quit making them in the late 1950s. The photo is a blurry screen cap and was all I could find.
Director James P. Hogan (1890) handled those duties for SCANDAL STREET (1938). A lot of Hogan product comes from two successful B series, Bulldog Drummond and Ellery Queen. His final film, made in 1943 shortly before his death, was THE MAD GHOUL. In the photo, Evelyn Ankers shows Hogan and lead David Bruce a list of her many horror credits.
Roger Moore was in two Weidler films. Does that make Ginny a Bond girl? Not quite. This Roger Moore was born in the United States in 1900 and worked in character roles for thirty years ending with the role of a chauffeur in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. Roger played a still cameraman in TOO HOT TO HANDLE (1938) and a waiter in THIS TIME FOR KEEPS (1942). TTFK has a fun cast list because it also features actress Doris Day, the one who came a decade before that famous one. The photo is of Guy Kibbee ordering something “shaken, not stirred” from waiter Moore. If I tell you that Roger Moore was not our actor’s real name and that his younger brother was a bigger star using the family name, can you guess who his brother is just by looking at his photo? No cheating. Contact me if you know.
I had a tough time finding a photo of Ronald R. Rondell (1903) Apparently his son, Ronald Jr., is a successful character actor and stuntman and doesn’t use Jr. behind his name anymore. Ronald Sr. was a reporter in THE SPELLBINDER (1939) and a mechanic in MEN WITH WINGS (1938). After a long acting career, Rondell moved behind the camera as a second director for another two decades until 1965.
Mickey Kuhn (1932) can still be seen on occasion when film lovers get together to celebrate GONE WITH THE WIND. He was Beau Wilkes in the film and is sometimes invited to film festivals as a survivor old enough to have some memory of the shoot. Mickey would go on to play Junior in DICK TRACY, but would leave the business by age 25 with a biography that reads a little like Ginny’s, complete with references to the “awkward age”. Mickey played Bobby Creighton, the five year old son in the family who take Patsy in in BAD LITTLE ANGEL (1939). In the photo, Patsy wants to leave the Creightons to protect them from her “jinx” and is giving her dog Rags (Terry/Toto) to Bobby.
