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)
Her Husband's Affairs
as J.B. Cruikshank
(1947)
The Ghost Goes Wild
as Eric
(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)
Brazil
as Everett St. John Everett
(1944)
The Town Went Wild
as Everett Conway
(1944)
Summer Storm
as Count "Piggy" Volsky
(1944)
Her Primitive Man
as Orrin
(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)
I Married an Angel
as Peter
(1942)
Springtime in the Rockies
as McTavish
(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)
The Body Disappears
as Professor Shotesbury
(1941)
Weekend for Three
as Fred Stonebraker
(1941)
You're the One
as Death Valley Joe Frink
(1941)
Bachelor Daddy
as Joseph Smith
(1939)
That's Right – You're Wrong
as Tom Village
(1939)
Paris Honeymoon
as Ernest Figg
(1939)
The Gang's All Here
as Treadwell
(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)
Angel
as Graham
(1937)
Shall We Dance
as Jeffrey Baird
(1937)
Hitting a New High
as Lucius B. Blynn
(1937)
The Great Garrick
as Tubby
(1937)
The Perfect Specimen
as Mr. Grattan
(1937)
Danger – Love at Work
as Howard Rogers
(1937)
Oh, Doctor
as Edward J. Billop
(1937)
Wild Money
as P.E. Dodd
(1937)
The King and the Chorus Girl
as Count Humbert Evel Bruger
(1936)
Her Master's Voice
as Ned Farrar
(1936)
The Singing Kid
as Davenport Rogers
(1936)
Let's Make a Million
as Harrison Gentry
(1936)
The Man in the Mirror
as Jeremy Dilke
(1936)
Hearts Divided
as John
(1936)
Nobody's Fool
as Will Wright
(1935)
Top Hat
as Horace Hardwick
(1935)
The Devil Is a Woman
as Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
(1935)
In Caliente
as Harold Brandon
(1935)
Little Big Shot
as Mortimer Thompson
(1935)
$10 Raise
as Hubert T. Wilkins
(1935)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
as Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
(1935)
The Night Is Young
as Baron Szereny
(1935)
Your Uncle Dudley
as Dudley Dixon
(1935)
Going Highbrow
as Augie Winterspoon
(1935)
(1935)
The Private Secretary
as Rev. Robert Spalding
(1935)
All the King's Horses
as Count Josef 'Peppi' von Schlapstaat
(1935)
His Night Out
as Homer B. Bitts
(1934)
The Gay Divorcee
as Egbert Fitzgerald
(1934)
The Merry Widow
as Ambassador Popoff
(1934)
Sing and Like It
as Adam Frink - Producer
(1934)
The Poor Rich
as Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
(1934)
Smarty
as Vernon
(1934)
It's a Boy
as Dudley Leake
(1934)
Easy to Love
as Eric
(1934)
Ladies Should Listen
as Paul Vernet
(1934)
Kiss and Make-Up
as Marcel Caron
(1934)
Success at Any Price
as Harry Fisher
(1933)
Design for Living
as Max Plunkett
(1933)
Alice in Wonderland
as Mad Hatter
(1933)
Soldiers of the King
as Sebastian Marvello
(1933)
The Way to Love
as Professor Gaston Bibi
(1933)
A Bedtime Story
as Victor Dubois
(1932)
Trouble in Paradise
as François Filiba
(1932)
But the Flesh Is Weak
as Sir George Kelvin
(1932)
Roar of the Dragon
as Busby
(1931)
The Front Page
as Bensinger
(1931)
Smart Woman
as Billy Ross
(1931)
The Age for Love
as Horace Keats
(1931)
Kiss Me Again
as Rene
(1931)
Lonely Wives
as Richard 'Dickie' Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
(1931)
The Great Junction Hotel
as The Groom
(1931)
Six Cylinder Love
as Monty Winston
(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 Hottentot
as Sam Harrington
(1929)
Sonny Boy
as Crandall Thorpe
(1929)
The Sap
as The Sap, Bill Small
(1929)
The Aviator
as Robert Street
(1929)
Ask Dad
as Dad
(1928)
The Terror
as Ferdinand Fane
(1928)
Vacation Waves
as Eddie Davis
(1928)
Call Again
as Eddie
(1928)
Behind the Counter
as Eddie Baxter
(1928)
Scrambled Weddings
as Eddie Howe
(1928)
Horse Shy
as Eddie Hamilton
(1928)
Dad's Choice
as Eddie
(1927)
No Publicity
as Eddie Howard
(1927)
Taxi! Taxi!
as Peter Whitby
(1927)
Find the King
as Edward Fairchild
(1926)
La Bohème
as Benoit - Janitor
(1926)
Poker Faces
as Jimmy Whitmore
(1926)
The Whole Town's Talking
as Chester Binney
(1926)
The Nutcracker
as Horatio Slipaway
(1925)
Beggar on Horseback
as Neil McRae
(1924)
Flapper Wives
as Vincent Platt
(1924)
The Man Who Fights Alone
as Bob Alten
(1924)
To the Ladies
as Leonard Beebe
(1924)
Helen's Babies
as Uncle Harry
(1923)
Ruggles of Red Gap
as Ruggles
(1922)
Too Much Business
as John Henry Jackson