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)
Summer Storm
as Count "Piggy" Volsky
(1944)
San Diego I Love You
as Philip McCooley
(1944)
Brazil
as Everett St. John Everett
(1944)
Her Primitive Man
as Orrin
(1944)
Arsenic and Old Lace
as Mr. Witherspoon
(1944)
The Town Went Wild
as Everett Conway
(1943)
Thank Your Lucky Stars
as Farnsworth
(1943)
Forever and a Day
as Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
(1943)
The Gang's All Here
as Peyton Potter
(1942)
Springtime in the Rockies
as McTavish
(1942)
I Married an Angel
as Peter
(1942)
The Magnificent Dope
as Horace Hunter
(1941)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
as Messenger 7013
(1941)
Weekend for Three
as Fred Stonebraker
(1941)
The Body Disappears
as Professor Shotesbury
(1941)
You're the One
as Death Valley Joe Frink
(1941)
Sunny
as Henry Bates
(1941)
Ziegfeld Girl
as Noble Sage
(1941)
Bachelor Daddy
as Joseph Smith
(1939)
Paris Honeymoon
as Ernest Figg
(1939)
That's Right – You're Wrong
as Tom Village
(1939)
The Gang's All Here
as Treadwell
(1938)
Holiday
as Nick Potter
(1938)
College Swing
as Hubert Dash
(1938)
Little Tough Guys in Society
as Oliver
(1938)
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
as Marquis De Loiselle
(1937)
Lost Horizon
as Alexander P. " Lovey " Lovett
(1937)
The Great Garrick
as Tubby
(1937)
Danger – Love at Work
as Howard Rogers
(1937)
The Perfect Specimen
as Mr. Grattan
(1937)
Shall We Dance
as Jeffrey Baird
(1937)
Hitting a New High
as Lucius B. Blynn
(1937)
Angel
as Graham
(1937)
Wild Money
as P.E. Dodd
(1937)
Oh, Doctor
as Edward J. Billop
(1937)
The King and the Chorus Girl
as Count Humbert Evel Bruger
(1936)
Let's Make a Million
as Harrison Gentry
(1936)
The Singing Kid
as Davenport Rogers
(1936)
Her Master's Voice
as Ned Farrar
(1936)
The Man in the Mirror
as Jeremy Dilke
(1936)
Hearts Divided
as John
(1936)
Nobody's Fool
as Will Wright
(1935)
Little Big Shot
as Mortimer Thompson
(1935)
The Private Secretary
as Rev. Robert Spalding
(1935)
His Night Out
as Homer B. Bitts
(1935)
$10 Raise
as Hubert T. Wilkins
(1935)
The Devil Is a Woman
as Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
(1935)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
as Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
(1935)
Your Uncle Dudley
as Dudley Dixon
(1935)
Top Hat
as Horace Hardwick
(1935)
Going Highbrow
as Augie Winterspoon
(1935)
All the King's Horses
as Count Josef 'Peppi' von Schlapstaat
(1935)
The Night Is Young
as Baron Szereny
(1935)
(1935)
In Caliente
as Harold Brandon
(1934)
The Poor Rich
as Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
(1934)
The Merry Widow
as Ambassador Popoff
(1934)
Ladies Should Listen
as Paul Vernet
(1934)
Success at Any Price
as Harry Fisher
(1934)
Smarty
as Vernon
(1934)
It's a Boy
as Dudley Leake
(1934)
Sing and Like It
as Adam Frink - Producer
(1934)
The Gay Divorcee
as Egbert Fitzgerald
(1934)
Easy to Love
as Eric
(1934)
Kiss and Make-Up
as Marcel Caron
(1933)
A Bedtime Story
as Victor Dubois
(1933)
Design for Living
as Max Plunkett
(1933)
Alice in Wonderland
as Mad Hatter
(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)
The Age for Love
as Horace Keats
(1931)
Kiss Me Again
as Rene
(1931)
Smart Woman
as Billy Ross
(1931)
Lonely Wives
as Richard 'Dickie' Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
(1931)
Six Cylinder Love
as Monty Winston
(1931)
The Great Junction Hotel
as The Groom
(1930)
Once a Gentleman
as Oliver
(1930)
Holiday
as Nick Potter
(1930)
Reaching for the Moon
as Roger, the Valet
(1930)
Take the Heir
as Smithers
(1930)
Wide Open
as Simon Haldane
(1929)
Sonny Boy
as Crandall Thorpe
(1929)
The Sap
as The Sap, Bill Small
(1929)
The Hottentot
as Sam Harrington
(1929)
The Aviator
as Robert Street
(1929)
Ask Dad
as Dad
(1928)
Behind the Counter
as Eddie Baxter
(1928)
Dad's Choice
as Eddie
(1928)
Vacation Waves
as Eddie Davis
(1928)
Call Again
as Eddie
(1928)
The Terror
as Ferdinand Fane
(1928)
Horse Shy
as Eddie Hamilton
(1928)
Scrambled Weddings
as Eddie Howe
(1927)
No Publicity
as Eddie Howard
(1927)
Find the King
as Edward Fairchild
(1927)
Taxi! Taxi!
as Peter Whitby
(1926)
The Nutcracker
as Horatio Slipaway
(1926)
Poker Faces
as Jimmy Whitmore
(1926)
La Bohème
as Benoit - Janitor
(1926)
The Whole Town's Talking
as Chester Binney
(1925)
Beggar on Horseback
as Neil McRae
(1924)
To the Ladies
as Leonard Beebe
(1924)
The Man Who Fights Alone
as Bob Alten
(1924)
Helen's Babies
as Uncle Harry
(1924)
Flapper Wives
as Vincent Platt
(1923)
Ruggles of Red Gap
as Ruggles
(1922)
The Ladder Jinx
as Arthur Barnes
(1922)
Too Much Business
as John Henry Jackson