Edward Everett Horton
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Edward Everett Horton Jr. (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons. Horton began his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business (1922), but he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in the drama Beggar on Horseback (1925). In the late 1920s, he starred in two-reel silent comedies for Educational Pictures, and made the transition to talking pictures with Educational in 1929. As a stage-trained performer, he found more film work easily, and appeared in some of Warner Bros.' early talkies, including The Terror (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929). Horton initially used his given name, Edward Horton, professionally. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally, reasoning that other actors might be named Edward Horton, but only one named Edward Everett Horton. Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the time-honored double take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he would smile ingratiatingly and nod in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask. Horton starred in many comedy features in the 1930s, usually playing a mousy fellow who put up with domestic or professional problems to a certain point, and then finally asserted himself for a happy ending. He is best known, however, for his work as a character actor in supporting roles. These include The Front Page (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Alice in Wonderland (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934, the first of several Astaire/Rogers films in which Horton appeared), Top Hat (1935), Danger - Love at Work (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), Holiday (1938), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). His last role was in the comedy film Cold Turkey (1971), in which his character communicated only through facial expressions.
Known For
François Filiba
Trouble in Paradise
Mr. Witherspoon
Arsenic and Old Lace
Hudgins
Pocketful of Miracles
Horace Hardwick
Top Hat
Alexander P. " Lovey " Lovett
Lost Horizon
Smithers
Take the Heir
Mr. Haskell
Lady on a Train
Mr. Dinckler
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Narrator
The Emperor's Oblong Pancake
Jeffrey Baird
Shall We Dance
Oliver
Once a Gentleman
Marquis De Loiselle
Bluebeard's Eighth Wife
Roger, the Valet
Reaching for the Moon
Mad Hatter
Alice in Wonderland
The Chief
Sex and the Single Girl
Egbert Fitzgerald
The Gay Divorcee
Hiram C. Grayson
Cold Turkey
Bensinger
The Front Page
Gov. Don Paquito 'Paquitito'
The Devil Is a Woman
Sir Walter Raleigh
The Story of Mankind
Anthony Trimble-Pomfret
Forever and a Day
McTavish
Springtime in the Rockies
Ambassador Popoff
The Merry Widow
Graham
Angel
Leonard Beebe
To the Ladies
Nick Potter
Holiday
Messenger 7013
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Chester Binney
The Whole Town's Talking
Messenger 7013
Down to Earth
Peyton Potter
The Gang's All Here
Eric
The Ghost Goes Wild
Count "Piggy" Volsky
Summer Storm
Paul Vernet
Ladies Should Listen
Philip McCooley
San Diego I Love You
Marcel Caron
Kiss and Make-Up
Max Plunkett
Design for Living
Lucius B. Blynn
Hitting a New High
Nick Potter
Holiday
Mortimer Thompson
Little Big Shot
Victor Dubois
A Bedtime Story
Evermore
2000 Years Later
Mr. Grattan
The Perfect Specimen
Hubert Dash
College Swing
Richard 'Dickie' Smith / Felix, the Great Zero
Lonely Wives
Howard Rogers
Danger – Love at Work
Henry Bates
Sunny
Tubby
The Great Garrick
Ruggles
Ruggles of Red Gap
Count Humbert Evel Bruger
The King and the Chorus Girl
Davenport Rogers
The Singing Kid
Dad
Ask Dad
Augie Winterspoon
Going Highbrow
Leander 'Bunny' Nolan
Biography of a Bachelor Girl
Billy Ross
Smart Woman
Dudley Leake
It's a Boy
Eric
Easy to Love
Caspar Coleman
The Perils of Pauline
Sir George Kelvin
But the Flesh Is Weak
John
Hearts Divided
Uncle Harry
Helen's Babies
Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood
The Poor Rich
Adam Frink - Producer
Sing and Like It
Simon Haldane
Wide Open
Baron Szereny
The Night Is Young
Everett Conway
The Town Went Wild
The Groom
The Great Junction Hotel
Vernon
Smarty
Everett St. John Everett
Brazil
Harold Brandon
In Caliente
Hubert T. Wilkins
$10 Raise
Harry Fisher
Success at Any Price
Fred Stonebraker
Weekend for Three
Narrator (voice)
One Got Fat
Ernest Figg
Paris Honeymoon
Count Josef 'Peppi' von Schlapstaat
All the King's Horses
Rene
Kiss Me Again
Monty Winston
Six Cylinder Love
Busby
Roar of the Dragon
Horace Keats
The Age for Love
Homer B. Bitts
His Night Out
Vincent Platt
Flapper Wives
Horace Hunter
The Magnificent Dope
Treadwell
The Gang's All Here
Noble Sage
Ziegfeld Girl
Benoit - Janitor
La Bohème
Neil McRae
Beggar on Horseback
Hiram Dilworthy
Faithful in My Fashion
The Sap, Bill Small
The Sap
Orrin
Her Primitive Man
Ned Farrar
Her Master's Voice
Keating
Cinderella Jones
Peter
I Married an Angel
Jeremy Dilke
The Man in the Mirror
Tom Village
That's Right – You're Wrong
Eddie
Dad's Choice
Oliver
Little Tough Guys in Society
Judge Avery Webster
Steppin' in Society
Dr. Milo Edwards
Earl Carroll Sketchbook
Robert Street
The Aviator
J.B. Cruikshank
Her Husband's Affairs
Farnsworth
Thank Your Lucky Stars
P.E. Dodd
Wild Money
Will Wright
Nobody's Fool
Edward J. Billop
Oh, Doctor
Sam Harrington
The Hottentot
Rev. Robert Spalding
The Private Secretary
Bob Alten
The Man Who Fights Alone
Professor Shotesbury
The Body Disappears
Bobby Kent
The Right Bed
Professor Gaston Bibi
The Way to Love
Eddie Baxter
Behind the Counter
Glenn Collins
Try and Get It
Ferdinand Fane
The Terror
Sebastian Marvello
Soldiers of the King
Dudley Dixon
Your Uncle Dudley
Self
Things You Never See on the Screen
Joseph Smith
Bachelor Daddy
Death Valley Joe Frink
You're the One
Self (archive footage)
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
Jimmy Whitmore
Poker Faces
Eddie Howard
No Publicity
Edward Fairchild
Find the King
Eddie Hamilton
Horse Shy
Eddie Davis
Vacation Waves
Harrison Gentry
Let's Make a Million
Crandall Thorpe
Sonny Boy
Professor Hotbox
The Wonderful World of Trains
Eddie Howe
Scrambled Weddings
Eddie
Call Again
Noah
Saturday Spectacular: Manhattan Tower
Peter Whitby
Taxi! Taxi!
Horatio Slipaway
The Nutcracker
John Henry Jackson
Too Much Business
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
133
Gender
Male
Birthday
1886-03-17
Place of Birth
Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
Also Known As
E.E. Horton