Edward Everett Horton
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Male
Birthday
1886-03-17
Day of Death
1970-09-29 (84 years old)
Place of Birth
Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
Edward Everett Horton
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edward Everett Horton Jr. (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. 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 the drama 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 other actors might be 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.
Known For
Acting
The Right Bed
as Bobby Kent
Try and Get It
as Glenn Collins
(1997)
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
as Self (archive footage)
(1971)
Cold Turkey
as Hiram C. Grayson
(1969)
2000 Years Later
as Evermore
(1967)
The Perils of Pauline
as Caspar Coleman
(1964)
Sex and the Single Girl
as The Chief
(1964)
The Emperor's Oblong Pancake
as Narrator
(1963)
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
as Mr. Dinckler
(1963)
One Got Fat
as Narrator (voice)
(1961)
Pocketful of Miracles
as Hudgins
(1960)
The Wonderful World of Trains
as Professor Hotbox
(1957)
The Story of Mankind
as Sir Walter Raleigh
(1956)
(1947)
Down to Earth
as Messenger 7013
(1947)
The Ghost Goes Wild
as Eric
(1947)
Her Husband's Affairs
as J.B. Cruikshank
(1946)
Cinderella Jones
as Keating
(1946)
Faithful in My Fashion
as Hiram Dilworthy
(1946)
Earl Carroll Sketchbook
as Dr. Milo Edwards
(1945)
Lady on a Train
as Mr. Haskell
(1945)
Steppin' in Society
as Judge Avery Webster
(1944)
Arsenic and Old Lace
as Mr. Witherspoon
(1944)
Summer Storm
as Count "Piggy" Volsky
(1944)
Brazil
as Everett St. John Everett
(1944)
Her Primitive Man
as Orrin
(1944)
The Town Went Wild
as Everett Conway
(1944)
San Diego I Love You
as Philip McCooley
(1943)
Forever and a Day
as Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
(1943)
The Gang's All Here
as Peyton Potter
(1943)
Thank Your Lucky Stars
as Farnsworth
(1942)
Springtime in the Rockies
as McTavish
(1942)
I Married an Angel
as Peter
(1942)
The Magnificent Dope
as Horace Hunter
(1941)
Ziegfeld Girl
as Noble Sage
(1941)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
as Messenger 7013
(1941)
Sunny
as Henry Bates
(1941)
Weekend for Three
as Fred Stonebraker
(1941)
The Body Disappears
as Professor Shotesbury
(1941)
Bachelor Daddy
as Joseph Smith
(1941)
You're the One
as Death Valley Joe Frink
(1939)
That's Right – You're Wrong
as Tom Village
(1939)
The Gang's All Here
as Treadwell
(1939)
Paris Honeymoon
as Ernest Figg
(1938)
Holiday
as Nick Potter
(1938)
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
as Marquis De Loiselle
(1938)
College Swing
as Hubert Dash
(1938)
Little Tough Guys in Society
as Oliver
(1937)
Lost Horizon
as Alexander P. " Lovey " Lovett
(1937)
Shall We Dance
as Jeffrey Baird
(1937)
Angel
as Graham
(1937)
Danger – Love at Work
as Howard Rogers
(1937)
The Great Garrick
as Tubby
(1937)
The Perfect Specimen
as Mr. Grattan
(1937)
The King and the Chorus Girl
as Count Humbert Evel Bruger
(1937)
Wild Money
as P.E. Dodd
(1937)
Hitting a New High
as Lucius B. Blynn
(1937)
Oh, Doctor
as Edward J. Billop
(1936)
Nobody's Fool
as Will Wright
(1936)
The Man in the Mirror
as Jeremy Dilke
(1936)
The Singing Kid
as Davenport Rogers
(1936)
Let's Make a Million
as Harrison Gentry
(1936)
Hearts Divided
as John
(1936)
Her Master's Voice
as Ned Farrar
(1935)
Top Hat
as Horace Hardwick
(1935)
The Devil Is a Woman
as Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
(1935)
The Night Is Young
as Baron Szereny
(1935)
The Private Secretary
as Rev. Robert Spalding
(1935)
In Caliente
as Harold Brandon
(1935)
(1935)
Little Big Shot
as Mortimer Thompson
(1935)
$10 Raise
as Hubert T. Wilkins
(1935)
All the King's Horses
as Count Josef 'Peppi' von Schlapstaat
(1935)
His Night Out
as Homer B. Bitts
(1935)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
as Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
(1935)
Going Highbrow
as Augie Winterspoon
(1935)
Your Uncle Dudley
as Dudley Dixon
(1934)
The Gay Divorcee
as Egbert Fitzgerald
(1934)
The Merry Widow
as Ambassador Popoff
(1934)
The Poor Rich
as Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
(1934)
Kiss and Make-Up
as Marcel Caron
(1934)
Smarty
as Vernon
(1934)
Easy to Love
as Eric
(1934)
Ladies Should Listen
as Paul Vernet
(1934)
It's a Boy
as Dudley Leake
(1934)
Sing and Like It
as Adam Frink - Producer
(1934)
Success at Any Price
as Harry Fisher
(1933)
Alice in Wonderland
as Mad Hatter
(1933)
Design for Living
as Max Plunkett
(1933)
A Bedtime Story
as Victor Dubois
(1933)
The Way to Love
as Professor Gaston Bibi
(1933)
Soldiers of the King
as Sebastian Marvello
(1932)
Trouble in Paradise
as François Filiba
(1932)
Roar of the Dragon
as Busby
(1932)
But the Flesh Is Weak
as Sir George Kelvin
(1931)
The Front Page
as Bensinger
(1931)
Lonely Wives
as Richard 'Dickie' Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
(1931)
Smart Woman
as Billy Ross
(1931)
Six Cylinder Love
as Monty Winston
(1931)
The Age for Love
as Horace Keats
(1931)
Kiss Me Again
as Rene
(1931)
The Great Junction Hotel
as The Groom
(1930)
Reaching for the Moon
as Roger, the Valet
(1930)
Holiday
as Nick Potter
(1930)
Wide Open
as Simon Haldane
(1930)
Once a Gentleman
as Oliver
(1930)
Take the Heir
as Smithers
(1929)
The Aviator
as Robert Street
(1929)
The Sap
as The Sap, Bill Small
(1929)
Sonny Boy
as Crandall Thorpe
(1929)
The Hottentot
as Sam Harrington
(1929)
Ask Dad
as Dad
(1928)
Scrambled Weddings
as Eddie Howe
(1928)
The Terror
as Ferdinand Fane
(1928)
Dad's Choice
as Eddie
(1928)
Behind the Counter
as Eddie Baxter
(1928)
Call Again
as Eddie
(1928)
Horse Shy
as Eddie Hamilton
(1928)
Vacation Waves
as Eddie Davis
(1927)
Find the King
as Edward Fairchild
(1927)
No Publicity
as Eddie Howard
(1927)
Taxi! Taxi!
as Peter Whitby
(1926)
The Whole Town's Talking
as Chester Binney
(1926)
La Bohème
as Benoit - Janitor
(1926)
The Nutcracker
as Horatio Slipaway
(1926)
Poker Faces
as Jimmy Whitmore
(1925)
Beggar on Horseback
as Neil McRae
(1924)
The Man Who Fights Alone
as Bob Alten
(1924)
Flapper Wives
as Vincent Platt
(1924)
Helen's Babies
as Uncle Harry
(1924)
To the Ladies
as Leonard Beebe
(1923)
Ruggles of Red Gap
as Ruggles
(1922)
Too Much Business
as John Henry Jackson