Clinton Sundberg(1903-1987)
- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Soft-spoken small-part actor Clinton Sundberg was a minor player on the
MGM payroll during the late 40s and 50s. A one-time teacher who turned
his focus to character acting, his rather meek countenance and light,
raspy tenor tones befitted a comfortable niche playing courteous
servile types in mostly sentimental tales. As various desk clerks,
waiters and menservants (and maybe a couple of out-of-character
villains), he seemed to back up a large roster of MGM's biggest stars
in musicals (he himself didn't sing) including June Allyson in Good News (1947),
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) and Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun (1950), to name a few.
Of these, he may be best remembered as Judy Garland's benevolent bartender
in Easter Parade (1948). Other more prominent parts came as a snippy butler in
The Girl Next Door (1953) and private eye J. Scott Smart's "Man Friday" in the Universal mystery
programmer The Fat Man (1951). A Broadway veteran, Sundberg's better known stage
roles were as Mortimer in "Arsenic and Old Lace" and Mr. Kraler in "The
Diary of Anne Frank." TV allowed him to be a bit more assertive in
personality while also showing his intelligent side as assorted doctor
and professor types. Sundberg went on to appear in dozens of
voice-overs and commercials in the 1970s. He died of heart failure in
1987 shortly after his 84th birthday.
MGM payroll during the late 40s and 50s. A one-time teacher who turned
his focus to character acting, his rather meek countenance and light,
raspy tenor tones befitted a comfortable niche playing courteous
servile types in mostly sentimental tales. As various desk clerks,
waiters and menservants (and maybe a couple of out-of-character
villains), he seemed to back up a large roster of MGM's biggest stars
in musicals (he himself didn't sing) including June Allyson in Good News (1947),
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) and Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun (1950), to name a few.
Of these, he may be best remembered as Judy Garland's benevolent bartender
in Easter Parade (1948). Other more prominent parts came as a snippy butler in
The Girl Next Door (1953) and private eye J. Scott Smart's "Man Friday" in the Universal mystery
programmer The Fat Man (1951). A Broadway veteran, Sundberg's better known stage
roles were as Mortimer in "Arsenic and Old Lace" and Mr. Kraler in "The
Diary of Anne Frank." TV allowed him to be a bit more assertive in
personality while also showing his intelligent side as assorted doctor
and professor types. Sundberg went on to appear in dozens of
voice-overs and commercials in the 1970s. He died of heart failure in
1987 shortly after his 84th birthday.