Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Harry Carey

 
Actor: Harry Carey
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Jan 16, 1878 in Bronx, New York City, New York
  • Died: May 21, 1947 in Brentwood, California
  • Occupation: Actor, Writer, Director
  • Active: teens-'30s
  • Major Genres: Western, Drama
  • Career Highlights: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Duel in the Sun, The Spoilers
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Master Cracksman (1914)

Biography

Western film star Harry Carey was the Eastern-born son of a Bronx judge. Carey's love and understanding of horses and horsemanship was gleaned from watching the activities of New York's mounted policemen of the 1880s. He worked briefly as an actor in stock, then studied law until a bout of pneumonia forced him to quit the job that was paying for his education. He reactivated his theatrical career in 1904 by touring the provinces in Montana, a play he wrote himself. In 1911, Carey signed with the Bronx-based Biograph film company, playing villain roles for pioneer director D. W. Griffith. Though only in his mid-30s, Carey's face had already taken on its familiar creased, weatherbeaten look; it was an ideal face for westerns, as Carey discovered when he signed with Hollywood's Fox Studios. Under the guidance of fledgling director John Ford, Carey made 26 features and two-reelers in the role of hard-riding frontiersman Cheyenne Harry. Throughout the 1920s, Carey remained an audience favorite, supplementing his acting income with occasional scripting, producing and co-directing assignments. At the dawn of the talkie era, Carey had been around so long that he was considered an old-timer, and had resigned himself to playing supporting parts. His starring career was revitalized by the 1931 jungle epic Trader Horn, in which he appeared with his wife Olive Golden. While he still accepted secondary roles in "A" features (he earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the Vice President in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]), Carey remained in demand during the 1930s as a leading player, notably in the autumnal 1936 western The Last Outlaw and the rugged 1932 serial Last of the Mohicans. In 1940, Carey made his belated Broadway debut in Heavenly Express, following this engagement with appearances in Ah, Wilderness (1944) and But Not Goodbye (1944). By the early 1940s, Carey's craggy face had taken on Mount Rushmore dimensions; his was the archetypal "American" countenance, a fact that director Alfred Hitchcock hoped to exploit. Hitchcock wanted to cast Carey against type as a Nazi ringleader in 1942's Saboteur, only to have these plans vetoed by Mrs. Carey, who insisted that her husband's fans would never accept such a radical deviation from his image. Though Carey and director John Ford never worked together in the 1930s and 1940s, Ford acknowledged his indebtedness to the veteran actor by frequently casting Harry Carey Jr. (born 1921), a personable performer in his own right, in important screen roles. When Carey Sr. died in 1948, Ford dedicated his film Three Godfathers to Harry's memory. A more personal tribute to Harry Carey Sr. was offered by his longtime friend John Wayne; in the very last shot of 1955's The Searchers, Wayne imitated a distinctive hand gesture that Harry Carey had virtually patented in his own screen work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Wikipedia: Harry Carey
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
For the Japanese method of suicide known formally as seppuku, see Hara-kiri.
This page is about the actor Harry Carey. For the baseball broadcaster with a similar name, see Harry Caray.
Harry Carey

Harry Carey in the 1920 film 'If Only' Jim
Born Henry DeWitt Carey II
January 16, 1878(1878-01-16)
The Bronx, New York, U.S.A.
Died September 21, 1947 (aged 69)
Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Spouse(s) Olive Carey (m. January 1920 – 21 September 1947) (until his death) 2 children
Fern Foster (actress)

Harry Carey (January 16, 1878 – September 21, 1947) was an American actor and one of silent film's earliest superstars.

Contents

Early life and career

Carey was born Henry DeWitt Carey II in The Bronx, New York, the son of Ella J. Ludlum and Henry DeWitt Carey,[1] a prominent lawyer and judge. He grew up on City Island, Bronx.[2] Carey attended Hamilton Military Academy then studied law at New York University. After a boating accident which led to pneumonia, Carey wrote a play while recuperating and toured the country in it for three years, earning a great deal of money, all of which evaporated after his next play was a failure. In 1911, his friend Henry B. Walthall introduced him to director D.W. Griffith, for whom Carey was to make many films.

Career

Although Carey, one of Hollywood's finest character actors of the sound era, received an Oscar nomination for his role as the President of the Senate in the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, he is best remembered as one of the first stars of the Western film genre. He married at least twice and perhaps a third time (census records for 1910 indicate he had a wife named Clare E. Carey, and some references state that he was also married to actress Fern Foster). His last marriage was to actress Olive Fuller Golden (1896-1988). They purchased a large ranch in Saugus, California, north of Los Angeles, which, in 2005, was turned into Tesoro Adobe Historic Park.[3]

Their son, Harry Carey, Jr., would become a character actor, most famous for his roles in Westerns. Father and son both appear (albeit in different scenes) in the 1948 film, Red River, and mother and son are both featured in 1956's The Searchers.

Carey made his Broadway stage debut in 1940.

Death

Harry Carey died in 1947 from a combination of lung cancer, emphysema and coronary thrombosis, at the age of 69. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the family mausoleum in The Bronx, New York.

Honors and homages

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Harry Carey has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1521 Vine Street.

As an homage to him, John Wayne held his right elbow with his left hand in the closing shot of The Searchers, imitating a stance Carey himself often used in his films. According to Wayne, both he and Carey's widow Olive (who costarred in the film) wept when the scene was finished.[citation needed]

In 1976, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Filmography

Main article: Harry Carey filmography

References

  1. ^ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/celeb/hcary.htm
  2. ^ Berger, Meyer. "ABOUT NEW YORK", The New York Times, May 7, 1940. Accessed October 15, 2009. "Harry Carey's description of City Island when he was a boy in the Eighties made a hoarse and mildly profane pastorale."
  3. ^ http://www.lacountyparks.org/Parkinfo.asp?URL=cms1_047117.asp&Title=Tesoro%20Adobe%20Park. For more photographs, see "Places, Earth Tesoro Adobe Historic Park," http://www.placesearth.com/usa/california/los_angeles/tesoro_adobe/tesoro_adobe.shtml.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Harry Carey".  Read more

Related answers
» More
 
Answer these
» More

Mentioned in

» More» More