“Forgotten Hollywood”- Last Surviving Our Gang Child Dies…

Posted on December 17, 2012 by raideoman1 | No Comments

Manny P. here…

<——- Jack Hanlon was a freckle-faced child actor, who thrived during the Silent Era, and the early days of Hollywood’s Golden Age. He also co-starred in two Our Gang comedies at Hal Roach Studios. By the time he was 16, he  chose to retire from motion pictures.

   He made his screen debut in The General (1926), which starred Buster Keaton. AFI selected this silent classic as one of their Top 100 Films of all time. Hanlon’s performance was great, and it lead to Hal Roach casting the cherub in his 62nd and 63rd Our Gang two-reelers.

   William Wyler gave Hanlon his biggest role in The Shakedown (1929), the silent movie with partially dubbed dialogue produced by Sam Goldwyn, considered lost until a 35mm print was discovered and restored in 1998 by the George Eastman House Museum. Hanlon had his  initial on-screen kiss in 1930 from Greta Garbo in Romance. She received her first Academy Award nomination for this film performance. He appeared a few times with Clark Gable in The Easiest Way and Big Money; and with cowboy actor Ken Maynard in The Wagon Master, Parade of the West, and King of the Arena. Despite working with major stars, Hanlon seldom made a bankable income.

   After he retired from show business, he played minor league baseball, and served as an Army Air Corps paratrooper during World War II. After his military service, he was a longtime furniture mover in Las Vegas for Allied Van Lines.

   Jack Hanlon was 96.

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   David Strathairn, who plays Secretary of State Seward in Lincoln, is featured as our 16th President in a BBC-produced talking book. Called the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, it also features Richard Dreyfuss as Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

   What an engaging way to entertain and inform readers. This lesson is available in literary stores.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.


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