Catlett, Walter (1889–1960), character actor. The bespectacled, cigar‐chomping comedian who usually played rambunctious “wise guys,” was born in San Francisco and spent his earliest theatrical years with West Coast troupes. In the 1910s and 1920s he was notable in many Broadway musicals, especially Sally (1920) and Lady, Be Good! (1924), in which he introduced the title song. He later performed in many films.
Career Highlights: Pinocchio, Rain, The Front Page
First Major Screen Credit: Second Youth (1924)
Biography
Walter Catlett began his acting career in stock companies in his hometown of San Francisco. After attending St. Ignacious College, he reached New York in 1911 in the musical The Prince of Pilsen. Catlett's dithering comic gestures and air of perpetual confusion won him a legion of fans and admirers when he starred in several editions of The Ziegfeld Follies, and in the Ziegfeld-produced musical comedy Sally, in which he appeared for three years. Catlett made a handful of silent film appearances, but didn't catch on until the advent of talking pictures allowed moviegoers to see and hear his full comic repertoire. Usually sporting horn-rimmed spectacles or a slightly askew pince-nez, Catlett played dozens of bumbling petty crooks, pompous politicians and sleep-benumbed justices of the peace. Hired for a few days' work in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938), Catlett proved so hilarious in his portrayal of an easily befuddled small-town sheriff that his role was expanded, and he was retained off-screen to offer advice about comic timing to the film's star, Katharine Hepburn. In addition to his supporting appearances, Catlett starred in several 2-reel comedies, and was co-starred with his lifelong friend Raymond Walburn in the low-budget "Henry" series at Monogram. Busy until a few short years before his death, Walter Catlett appeared in such 1950s features as Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956), Friendly Persuasion (1956) and Beau James (1957) (as New York governor Al Smith). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Catlett was born in San Francisco, California. He made a career out for
himself playing excitable, officious blowhards. As a San Francisco citizen, he started out in vaudeville with a detour for a while in opera before breaking it out into films in the mid-1920s.
Walter made a handful of silent film appearances but didn't catch on until the advent of
talking pictures allowed movie-goers to go and see his full comic repertoire. Three of his
most remembered roles were as the stage manager given to distraction by James Cagney in
Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1942, the local
constable who throws the entire cast in jail and winds up there himself in the Howard Hawks
classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby in 1938,
and as Morrow, the drunken poet in the restaurant who "knows when [he's] been a skunk" and takes Longfellow Deeds on a "bender"
in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Catlett appeared as hotel resort tycoon 'Timber
Applegate' in the musical film Lady, Let's Dance (1944) which starred ice
skating sensation 'Belita' and James Ellison.
Before his death, he began role-playing in such 1950s films like Davy Crockett and the River Pirates in 1956, Friendly Persuasion also in 1956, and Beau James
in 1957.