Eugene William Pallette (July 8, 1889 – September 3, 1954) was an American actor who worked in both the
silent and
sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...
eras, performing in more than 240 productions between 1913 and 1946.
After an early career as a slender
leading man, Pallette became a stout
character actor
A character actor is an actor known for playing unusual, eccentric, or interesting character (arts), characters in supporting roles, rather than leading ones.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrie ...
. He had a deep voice, which some critics have likened to the sound of a croaking frog, and is probably best-remembered for comic character roles such as Alexander Bullock (
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard (born Jane Alice Peters; October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress, particularly noted for her energetic, often off-beat roles in screwball comedies. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard ...
's character's father) in ''
My Man Godfrey'' (1936),
Friar Tuck in ''
The Adventures of Robin Hood
''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a 1938 American Epic film, epic swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and written by Norman Reilly Ra ...
'' (1938), and his similar role as Fray Felipe in ''
The Mark of Zorro'' (1940). He also co-starred in ''
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' is a 1939 American political comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra, starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart, and featuring Claude Rains and Edward Arnold. The film is about a naive, newly appointed United ...
'' (1939) and ''
Heaven Can Wait'' (1943).
Early life
Eugene Pallette was born in
Winfield, Kansas, the son of William Baird Pallette and Elnora "Ella" Jackson. His parents had both been stage actors in their younger years, but by 1889 (the year of Pallette's birth) his father was working as an insurance salesman. His sister was Beulah L. Pallette.
Pallette attended
Culver Military Academy in
Culver, Indiana. He also worked as a jockey, and did a stage act which included three horses.
Career
Pallette began his
acting
Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.
Acting involves a broad range of sk ...
career on the
stage in
stock company roles, appearing for a period of six years.
Silent films
Pallette began his
silent film
A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...
career as an
extra
Extra, Xtra, or The Extra may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Film
* The Extra (1962 film), ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film
* The Extra (2005 film), ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film
Literature
* Extra (newspaper), ...
and
stunt man in 1910 or 1911. His first
credited appearance was in the one-
reel short western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
/
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
''The Fugitive'' (1913) which was directed by
Wallace Reid
William Wallace Halleck Reid (April 15, 1891 – January 18, 1923)
was an American actor in silent film, referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".
He also had a brief career as a racing driver.
Early life
Reid was born in St. Lou ...
for
Flying "A" Studios at
Santa Barbara. The up-and-coming actor was also splitting an apartment with actor
Wallace Reid
William Wallace Halleck Reid (April 15, 1891 – January 18, 1923)
was an American actor in silent film, referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover".
He also had a brief career as a racing driver.
Early life
Reid was born in St. Lou ...
.
Quickly advancing to featured status, Pallette was cast in many westerns. He worked with
D. W. Griffith on such films as ''
The Birth of a Nation
''The Birth of a Nation'' is a 1915 American Silent film, silent Epic film, epic Drama (film and television), drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and ...
'' (1915), where he played two parts, one in blackface, and ''
Intolerance
Intolerance may refer to:
* Hypersensitivity or intolerance, undesirable reactions produced by the immune system
* ''Intolerance'' (film), a 1916 film by D. W. Griffith
* ''Intolerance'' (album), the first solo album from Grant Hart, formerly ...
'' (1916). He also played a Chinese role in
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of var ...
's ''
The Highbinders''. At this time, Pallette had a slim, athletic figure, a far cry from his portly build later in his career. He starred as the slender sword-fighting swashbuckler
Aramis in
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...
' 1921 version of ''
The Three Musketeers
''The Three Musketeers'' () is a French historical adventure novel written and published in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is the first of the author's three d'Artagnan Romances. As with some of his other works, he wrote it in col ...
'', one of the great smash hits of the silent era. However, his girth had begun to get stockier, ending his ambitions of becoming a leading man. Discouraged, Pallette left Hollywood for the oil fields of Texas, where he both made and lost a sizable fortune of $140,000 () in the same year. Eventually he returned to film work.
After gaining a great deal of weight, he became one of the screen's most recognizable
character actor
A character actor is an actor known for playing unusual, eccentric, or interesting character (arts), characters in supporting roles, rather than leading ones.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrie ...
s. In 1927, he signed as a regular for
Hal Roach Studios
Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and, through its TV production subsidiary, Hal Roach Television Corporation, television production studio. Known as ''The Laugh Factory to the World'', it was founded by producer Hal Roach and busin ...
and was a reliable comic foil in several early
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...
movies. In later years, Pallette's weight may have topped out at more than 300 pounds (136 kg).
Sound films
The advent of the
talkies
A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...
proved to be the second major career boost for Pallette. In 1929 he appeared as "Honey" Wiggin in the 1929 talkie ''
The Virginian''. His inimitable rasping gravel voice (described as "half an octave below anyone else in the cast") made him one of
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
's most sought-after character actors in the 1930s and 1940s.
The typical Pallette role was gruff, aggravated and down to earth. He played the comically exasperated head of the family (e.g., ''
My Man Godfrey'', ''
The Lady Eve'', ''
Heaven Can Wait''), the cynical backroom sharpy (''
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' is a 1939 American political comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra, starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart, and featuring Claude Rains and Edward Arnold. The film is about a naive, newly appointed United ...
''), and the gruff police sergeant in five
Philo Vance films including ''
The Kennel Murder Case''. Pallette thus appeared in more Philo Vance films than any of the ten actors who played the aristocratic lead role of Vance. Pallette's best-known role may be as
Friar Tuck in ''
The Adventures of Robin Hood
''The Adventures of Robin Hood'' is a 1938 American Epic film, epic swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and written by Norman Reilly Ra ...
''; he made a similar appearance as Friar Felipe two years later in ''
The Mark of Zorro''.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
commentator
Dana Gioia described Pallette's onscreen appeal:
The mature Pallette character is a creature of provocative contradictions—tough-minded but indulgent, earthy but epicurean, relaxed but excitable. His grit and gravel voice sounds simultaneously tough and comic. ... Pallette uses his girth to create a common touch. Stuffed into a tuxedo that seems perpetually near bursting, he seems more down-to-earth than the stylish high society types who surround him.
Pallette was cast as the father of lead actress
Jeanne Crain
Jeanne Elizabeth Crain (May 25, 1925 – December 14, 2003) was an American actress. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her title role in ''Pinky (film), Pinky'' (1949). She also starred in the films ''In the Meantime, Da ...
for the film ''
In the Meantime, Darling'' (1944). Director
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger ( ; ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian Americans, Austrian-American film and theatre director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the the ...
clashed with Pallette and claimed he was "an admirer of
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
and convinced that Germany would win
the war". Pallette refused to sit at the same table with black actor
Clarence Muse in a scene set in a kitchen. "You're out of your mind, I won't sit next to a nigger," Pallette hissed at Preminger. Preminger furiously informed Fox studio head
Darryl F. Zanuck, who fired Pallette. Although Pallette remains in scenes he already had filmed, the remainder of his role not yet shot was eliminated from the script. However, a 1953 issue of the African-American magazine
''Jet'' listed Pallette as being among the attendees of a Hollywood banquet honoring the then "oldest Negro actress in the world",
Madame Sul-Te-Wan. For his part, Pallette always maintained that a medical problem with his throat ended his career.
In increasingly ill health by his late fifties, Pallette made fewer and fewer movies, and for lesser studios. His final movie, ''
Suspense
Suspense is a state of anxiety or excitement caused by mysteriousness, uncertainty, doubt, or undecidedness. In a narrative work, suspense is the audience's excited anticipation about the plot or conflict (which may be heightened by a viol ...
'', was released in 1946.
Later life

In 1946, convinced that there was going to be a "world blow-up" by
atomic bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
s, the hawkish Pallette received considerable publicity when he set up a "mountain fortress" on a ranch near
Imnaha, Oregon, as a hideaway from universal catastrophe. The "fortress" reportedly was stocked with a sizable herd of prize cattle, enormous supplies of food, and had its own canning plant and lumber mill.
When the "blow-up" he anticipated failed to materialize after two years, he began disposing of the Oregon ranch and returned to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and his movie colony friends. He never appeared in another movie, however.
Eugene Pallette died at age 65 in 1954 from
throat cancer
Head and neck cancer is a general term encompassing multiple cancers that can develop in the head and neck region. These include cancers of the mouth, tongue, gums and lips ( oral cancer), voice box ( laryngeal), throat ( nasopharyngeal, orophar ...
at his apartment, 10835 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles. His wife, Marjorie, and his sister, Beulah Phelps, were at his side. Private funeral services were conducted on Saturday, September 4, 1954, at the Armstrong Family Mortuary. His cremated remains are interred in an
unmarked grave behind the monument of his parents at Green Lawn Cemetery in
Grenola, Kansas
Grenola is a city in Elk County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 151.
History
Grenola had its start in the year 1879 by the building of the railroad through that territory. At that time, the two ...
.
He has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a landmark which consists of 2,813 five-pointed terrazzo-and-brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood dist ...
at 6702
Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It runs through the Hollywood, East Hollywood, Little Armenia, Thai Town, and Los Feliz districts. Its western terminus is at Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollyw ...
for his contribution to motion pictures.
Filmography
References
Works cited
*
Further reading
*
External links
*
ObituaryLiterature on Eugene Pallette
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pallette, Eugene
1889 births
1954 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male silent film actors
American male stage actors
Articles containing video clips
Culver Academies alumni
Deaths from cancer in California
Male actors from Kansas
Paramount Pictures contract players
People from Winfield, Kansas
Survivalists