Wallace Ford
Wallace Ford was an English-born naturalized American vaudevillian, stage, film, and television actor. Usually playing wise-cracking characters, he combined a tough but friendly faced demeanor with a small but powerful, stocky physique.
Early life
He was born Samuel Grundy Jones in Bolton, Lancashire, England, into a working-class family of limited means. At the age of three, he was placed by his uncle and aunt, in whose care he had been, into a Barnardo's orphanage home, since they were unable to maintain his upkeep along with their own several children. When he was seven, he and other children from similar backgrounds were shipped to Canada to be found new homes with farming foster families as a part of the British Empire's on-going programme to populate the territory.Samuel was adopted by a family in Manitoba. He was ill-treated, and became a serial runaway, being resettled several times with different families by the Canadian authorities. According to his own account, at the age of 11, he ran away for the last time and joined a vaudeville traveling troupe touring Canada called the Winnipeg Kiddies, where he acquired his initial training as a performer.
In 1914, 16-year-old Samuel and another youth named Wallace Ford decided to head south to the United States to seek their fortunes, riding a freight train illicitly. During the trip, Ford was killed beneath the wheels of a train. Later, Samuel adopted as his stage name the name of his dead traveling companion.
Acting career
Following military service as a trooper at Fort Riley, Kansas, with the United States Army Cavalry during World War I, he became a vaudeville stage actor in an American stock company. In 1919, he performed in an adaptation of Booth Tarkington's Seventeen, which played to full houses in Chicago for several months, before transferring to a successful run on Broadway in New York City. Ford became a successful Broadway performer through the Roaring Twenties, appearing in multiple productions, including the lead role in the Broadway smash hit Abie's Irish Rose.In motion pictures, he made his credited debut with Possessed in 1931, appearing with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, and the next year he was given the lead in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Freaks, directed by Tod Browning. Ford went on to have an extensive career over 30 years, appearing in more than 150 films, with lead roles in the 1930s and '40s in Hollywood B movies such as The Rogues' Tavern, Murder by Invitation, and Roar of the Press, and supporting roles in larger feature films such as The Lost Patrol, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, and Dead Reckoning.
In 1937, he returned to the Broadway stage to play the role of George in the original production of Of Mice and Men.
In 1945, Ford appeared in the film Blood on the Sun alongside Jimmy Cagney, whose physique and acting style resembled his own. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he transitioned into a character actor, appearing as a regular performer in the newly fashionable Western genre, and in multiple John Ford productions as one of his preferred support players.
In the latter stage of his career, during the 1950s and early 1960s, Ford performed increasingly on television. His final appearance on the "small screen" was on The Andy Griffith Show in 1964, playing Roger Hanover, Aunt Bee's old flame. The next year, he appeared in his last film, A Patch of Blue, for which he received a Golden Laurel nomination. Ford's performance as Ole Pa in A Patch of Blue also proved to be the final role of his extensive acting career.
Personal life
The actor became a naturalized United States citizen on May 8, 1942; by this act, he also legally changed his name from Samuel Grundy to Wallace Ford. He met his future wife Martha Haworth in 1922 while they were performing together on Broadway in Abie's Irish Rose, she being a chorus girl at the time. They had one child, a daughter named Patricia.After the death of his wife in February 1966, Ford moved into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital at Woodland Hills, California, and died in the hospital there of heart failure four months later. His body was buried in an unmarked grave at Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery.
Broadway credits
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1929 | Married in Hollywood | Mitzi's Fan | Uncredited |
| 1931 | Possessed | Al Manning | |
| 1931 | X Marks the Spot | Ted Lloyd | |
| 1932 | Freaks | Phroso | |
| 1932 | ' | Ed Fitzpatrick | |
| 1932 | ' | Jerry Tyler | |
| 1932 | Are You Listening? | Larry Barnes | |
| 1932 | Skyscraper Souls | Slim | |
| 1932 | Central Park | Rick | |
| 1932 | Hypnotized | Bill Bogard | |
| 1933 | Employees' Entrance | Martin West | |
| 1933 | Night of Terror | Tom Hartley | |
| 1933 | ' | Russ Penny | |
| 1933 | Headline Shooter | Mike | |
| 1933 | Three-Cornered Moon | Kenneth Rimplegar | |
| 1933 | Goodbye Again | Arthur Westlake | |
| 1933 | My Woman | Chick Rollins | |
| 1933 | East of Fifth Avenue | Vic Howard | |
| 1934 | Money Means Nothing | Joe Flynn | |
| 1934 | ' | Morelli | |
| 1934 | Men in White | Shorty | |
| 1934 | I Hate Women | Scoop McGuire | |
| 1934 | Money Means Nothing | Kenneth 'Kenny' McKay | |
| 1934 | ' | Jason H. Barton | |
| 1934 | ' | Curly | |
| 1935 | ' | Healy | |
| 1935 | In Spite of Danger | Bob Crane | |
| 1935 | ' | Willie Barton | |
| 1935 | One Frightened Night | Joe Luvalie | |
| 1935 | Swell-Head | Terry McCall | |
| 1935 | Men of the Hour | Andy Blane | |
| 1935 | ' | Frankie McPhillip | |
| 1935 | Get That Man | Jack Kirkland / John Prescott | |
| 1935 | She Couldn't Take It | Fingers Boston | |
| 1935 | Mary Burns, Fugitive | Harper | |
| 1935 | Another Face | Joe Haynes | |
| 1936 | Two in the Dark | Harry Hillyer | |
| 1936 | Absolute Quiet | Jack | |
| 1936 | ' | Jimmy Kelly | |
| 1936 | ' | Steve | |
| 1937 | You're in the Army Now | Jimmy Tracy | |
| 1937 | Jericho | Mike Clancy | |
| 1937 | Exiled to Shanghai | Ted Young | |
| 1938 | Swing It, Sailor! | Pete Kelly | |
| 1938 | Stardust | Peter Jackson | |
| 1938 | The Marines Come Thru | Pvt. 'Singapore' Stebbins | |
| 1939 | Back Door to Heaven | Frankie Rogers | |
| 1940 | Isle of Destiny | Millard Barnes | |
| 1940 | Two Girls on Broadway | Jed Marlowe | |
| 1940 | Love, Honor, and Oh Baby! | Joe Redmond | |
| 1940 | Scatterbrain | Sam Maxwell | |
| 1940 | ' | Babe Jenson | |
| 1940 | Give Us Wings | Mr. York | |
| 1941 | ' | Casey | |
| 1941 | Roar of the Press | Wally Williams | |
| 1941 | Murder by Invitation | Bob White | |
| 1941 | Blues in the Night | Brad Ames | |
| 1942 | All Through the Night | Spats Hunter | |
| 1942 | Inside the Law | Billy | |
| 1942 | Scattergood Survives a Murder | Wally Collins | |
| 1942 | ' | Babe Hanson | |
| 1942 | Seven Days' Leave | Sergeant Mead | |
| 1942 | ' | Singapore | |
| 1943 | Shadow of a Doubt | Fred Saunders | |
| 1943 | ' | Jeff Carter | |
| 1943 | ' | Pierre Flandeau | |
| 1944 | Secret Command | Miller | |
| 1944 | Machine Gun Mama | Johnny O'Reilly | |
| 1945 | Blood on the Sun | Ollie Miller | |
| 1945 | ' | McManus | |
| 1945 | On Stage Everybody | Emmett Rogers | |
| 1945 | Spellbound | Stranger in hotel lobby | |
| 1946 | ' | Bill Conley | |
| 1946 | ' | Jamie Nigg | |
| 1946 | Lover Come Back | Tubbs | |
| 1946 | Rendezvous with Annie | Al Morgan | |
| 1946 | Black Angel | Joe | |
| 1946 | Crack-Up | Lieutenant Cochrane | |
| 1947 | Dead Reckoning | McGee | |
| 1947 | Magic Town | Lou Dicketts | |
| 1947 | T-Men | The schemer | |
| 1948 | Man from Texas | Jed | |
| 1948 | Shed No Tears | Sam Grover | |
| 1948 | Embraceable You | Police Lt. Ferria | |
| 1948 | Coroner Creek | Andy West | |
| 1948 | Belle Starr's Daughter | Lafe Bailey | |
| 1949 | ' | Gus | |
| 1949 | Red Stallion in the Rockies | Talky Carson | |
| 1950 | Dakota Lil | Carter | |
| 1950 | ' | Scotty Hyslip | |
| 1950 | ' | F.R. Duncan | |
| 1950 | Harvey | Ellis Logfren, The Taxi Driver | |
| 1951 | He Ran All the Way | Mr. Dobbs | |
| 1951 | Warpath | Private Potts | |
| 1951 | Painting the Clouds with Sunshine | Sam Parks | |
| 1952 | She Couldn't Say No | Joe Wheelen | |
| 1952 | Rodeo | Barbecue Jones | |
| 1952 | Flesh and Fury | Jack "Pop" Richardson | |
| 1953 | ' | Elias Hobbs | |
| 1953 | ' | Mac McBride | |
| 1954 | ' | Wally Higgins | |
| 1954 | Destry | Doc Curtis | |
| 1954 | 3 Ring Circus | Sam Morley | |
| 1955 | ' | Charley O'Leary | |
| 1955 | Wichita | Arthur Whiteside | |
| 1955 | Lucy Gallant | Gus Basserman | |
| 1955 | ' | Dr. Amos Wynn | |
| 1955 | ' | Flapjack Simms | |
| 1956 | ' | Jamie | |
| 1956 | ' | Henry Delaney | |
| 1956 | Johnny Concho | Albert Dark | |
| 1956 | Thunder Over Arizona | Hal Stiles | |
| 1956 | Stagecoach to Fury | Judge Lester Farrell | |
| 1956 | ' | Sheriff Howard Thomas | |
| 1958 | Twilight for the Gods | Old Brown | |
| 1958 | ' | Malachi Stack | |
| 1958 | ' | Charles J. Hennessey | |
| 1959 | Warlock | Judge Holloway | |
| 1960 | Tess of the Storm Country | Fred Thorson | |
| 1965 | Ole Pa |
Select television credits
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1953 | ' | "Outlaw's Reckoning" | |
| 1953 | Goodyear Television Playhouse | "The Happy Rest" | |
| 1953 | Armstrong Circle Theatre | "The Marshal of Misery Gulch" | |
| 1954 | Inner Sanctum | Photographer | "Dark of the Night" |
| 1955 | Ford Theatre | Talker | "Sunday Mourn" |
| 1955 | Damon Runyon Theatre | Lt. Harrigan | "Tobias the Terrible" |
| 1957 | ' | William Markham | "The Jim Thompson Case" |
| 1958 | Playhouse 90 | Mule Rogers | "The Last Man" |
| 1959–61 | Marshal Herk Lamson | ||
| 1964 | The Andy Griffith Show | Roger Hanover |