Character Actor Corner: Chill Wills

Bio:

He began performing in early childhood, going on to appear in tent shows, vaudeville, and stock throughout the Southwest. He also formed Chill Wills and the Avalon Boys, a singing group in which he was the leader and bass vocalist, in the '30s.

From  1930s through the 1970s he would appear in dozens of films,  but is best known for his westerns. Wills acted as sidekick in B westerns with such cowboy actors as George O'Brien, and he even did the voiceover of Francis the Talking Mule in the popular Universal-International film series of the same name.  In the fifties he appeared in Giant (1956). Perhaps the greatest moment of his career was being nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in The Alamo (1960). In the 1960s Wills' career began to slow, but he still found a few roles in The Rounders (1965; with Glenn Ford) and Fireball 500 (1966; with Fabian, Frankie Avalon, and Annette Funicello).

In 1975 he released a singing album--his first.

Wills passed away from cancer at the age of 73 in December 1978

Trivia:

While campaigning for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1960, Wills took out a series of ads with the declaration "Win, lose or draw, you`re all my cousins and I love you."It was signed "Your cousin, Chill Wills". One member of the Academy placed a response ad stating: "Dear Mr. Chill Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin but I voted for Sal Mineo. "It was signed, Groucho Marx!

Character Actor Corner: Beulah Bondi

Miss Beulah Bondi appeared in over 70 films,several Broadway Hit Plays, and appeared on Television. Of slight stature, with a gaunt, pale looking face, dark hair and deep-set, penetrating eyes, she was a veteran actress who worked well into her 80s.

Born Beulah Bondy in Chicago, Illinois on May 3, 1888, she began her acting career on the stage at age 7.  She changed the spelling of her name from Bondy to Bondi because her father disapproved of her chosen profession.  Upon graduation from Valparaiso University, she joined a stock company, working throughout the U.S. until her 1925 Broadway debut in Kenneth S. Webb's "One of the Family" at the 49th Street Theatre on December 21, 1925. The show was a modest hit, racking up 238 performances. She next appeared in another hit, Maxwell Anderson's "Saturday's Children," which ran for 326 performances, before appearing in her first flop, Clemence Dane's "Mariners" in 1927. Philip Barry's and Elmer Rice's "Cock Robin" was an extremely modest hit in 1928, reaching the century mark (100 performances), but it was Bondi's performance in Rice's "Street Scene," which opened at the Playhouse Theatre on Jamuary 10, 1929, that made her career. This famous play won Rice the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was a big hit, playing for 601 performances

Her film debut occurred at age 43, in 1931's Street Scene. Though young in age, Bondi specialized in playing mothers, grandmothers and society dowagers. Look for Beulah in movies made in the1930's and 40's. You will probably find her in the next one you watch. In her role as Rachel Jackson in "The Gorgeous Hussy" (1936), she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Nomination. She is probably best remembered for her role as Mrs. Bailey, the mother of George Bailey, in "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946). Her own favorite performance was as a bigoted women, Ma Bridges, in 1957's "Track of the Cat."

Her last movie role was in a TV movie "She Waits" (1971) as Mrs. Angela Medina.  In 1977, she won  an Emmy for her performance on the dramatic TV series The Waltons. As often as she played the ideal mother in films, she never married or had children in real life. She lived alone  in a beautiful three story house built into the Hollywood Hills. She died on January 11, 1981 at age 92 in Hollywood, California of pulmonary complications due to broken ribs she suffered in a fall at her home.

Character Actor Corner: Charles Coburn

Born in Macon, Georgia in 1877, Charles Coburn was an actor whose talents allowed him to star on the stage, in motion pictures, and on radio and television. He was known for his trademark monacle.  At age fourteen, when only a Program Boy at the Savannah Theater, Coburn began his love affair with acting. He eagerly accumulated valuable theater experience as an usher, doorman, treasurer, and finally at age eighteen, the theater manager. By twenty one, Coburn was regularly working as an actor in stock companies. He and his wife, Ivah Wills, formed their own successful touring company, The Coburn Players, in 1905 specializing in Shakespearian plays.


Coburn left the stage in grief following the death of his wife in 1937 and was persuaded to try out for character roles in motion pictures. Performing in over forty films between 1938 and 1959, Coburn received critical acclaim and in 1943 was awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The More the Merrier. He also starred in The Green Years,Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Monkey Business with Marilyn Monroe, and King's Row with Ronald Reagan. He also worked with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve, and Bing Crosby in Mr. Music and Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case.

Coburn was particularly proud of being a Georgian, and he regularly visited the University of Georgia Library. Before his death in 1961, Coburn bequeathed to the Library all of his theatrical library and vast papers including scripts, scrapbooks, celebrity photographs, publicity photographs and motion picture stills. He died of a heart attack in New York City.