salutes Frank Morgan
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salutes Frank Morgan |
| "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Well of course we
all loved and did pay attention to him. One of the most loved character actors of all time really wanted to be a stage actor. Frank Morgan, best known to all of us as The Wizard Of Oz, was in fact stage actor Francis ("Frank") Wuppermann, born in New York City in 1890 to a rich family famous for distributing bitters for cocktails (their product is still on the market to this day). By the early 1930s, he gave up on stage acting, and moved more or less permanently into the world of MGM's giant studio. The theater's loss is our gain -- because he excelled in his motion picture roles, we can revisit his performances again and again.
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He started his motion picture career in early Vitagraph (silent) movies, starting in 1916, the same year that D.W. Griffith made "Intolerance." Morgan's career spanned the five decade history of the Hollywood studio system, earning him two Oscar nominations (including Best Supporting Actor in Tortilla Flat, being shown this year by FILM NIGHT), but he never won the coveted statuette. It's a shame, because his unique presence was felt in one hundred films, ending in 1952's Gold Fever, released three years after Morgan's death. Among the highlights of his career is his performance as Mr. Matuschek in The Shop Around The Corner, the sweet Ernst Lubitsch film, also to be shown this year in Creek Park. Other roles include the Duke of Florence in The Affairs of Cellini (1934), which won him his other Oscar nomination, Bob Casey in Broadway Melody of 1940, and roles in There's Always Tomorrow (1934), Green Dolphin Street (1947), and in the year of his death, Any Number Can Play (1949). Besides a Duke, he also played the Governor in the film version of the operetta Naughty Marietta (1935), and the Mayor in the enormously popular Depression era film, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. |
| Out of his entire career, the Wizard of Oz remained one of Morgan's favorite roles -- he always loved and believed in the film and the character -- and of course whenever we think of Morgan, we think of that "man behind the curtain!" |
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Frank Morgan trivia: One of Frank Morgan's most unusual
roles was in the 1946 Nat Perrin comedy, The Great Morgan, where Frank actually
played himself -- Frank Morgan, the bumbling character actor who decides MGM isn't
treating him well enough, and so he takes movie-making into his own hands, with
predictably disastrous results. After firing his editor and causing a mess in the edit
room, he manages to cut and paste a film out of old MGM outtakes (including his own, many
upside-down)! This film has become quite rare, unfortunately, and we can only hope that
someday it will become available on videocassette.
by Kenn Rabin |
| Frank Morgan Born Francis Wuppermann, June 1st, 1890, New York City, New York Died September 18th, 1949, Beverly Hills, California Family distributes universally-known condiment "Angostura Aromatic Bitters"
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| Film Night in the Park salutes Frank Morgan in 1999. Morgan stars in three festival movies; TORTILLA FLAT on Saturday, July 19th, THE WIZARD OF OZ on July 31st and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER on Saturday, September 4th. |
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