Charles Wagenheim(1896-1979)
- Actor
Initially drawn to an acting career to counterbalance an acute case of
shyness, diminutive character actor Charles Wagenheim's career
comprised hundreds upon hundreds of minor but atmospheric parts on
stage, film and TV. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1896, he was the son
of immigrant parents. Enlisting in the military during World War I, he
was compensated for an education by the government and chose to study
dramatics at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York,
graduating in 1923.
After touring with a Shakespearean company, he appeared in a host of
Broadway plays, several of them written, directed and/or produced by
the prolific George Abbott,
including "A Holy Terror" (1925), "Four Walls" (1927) and "Ringside"
(1928). Following a stage part in "Schoolhouse on the Lot" (1938), the
mustachioed Wagenheim turned to Hollywood for work. His dark, graveside
manner, baggy-eyed scowl and lowlife countenance proved ideal for a
number of genres, particularly crime thrillers and westerns.
In films from 1929, the character player scored well when
Alfred Hitchcock chose him to
play the assassin in
Foreign Correspondent (1940).
He went on to enact a number of seedy, unappetizing roles (tramps,
drunks, thieves) over the years but never found the one juicy part that
could have put him at the top of the character ranks. Usually billed
tenth or lower, Wagenheim was more filler than anything else which his
blue-collar gallery of cabbies, waiters, deputies, clerks, morgue
attendants, junkmen, etc., will attest. Some of his better delineated
roles came with
Two Girls on Broadway (1940);
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940);
Halfway to Shanghai (1942);
the cliffhangers
Don Winslow of the Navy (1942)
and
Raiders of Ghost City (1944);
The House on 92nd Street (1945);
A Lady Without Passport (1950);
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953);
and Canyon Crossroads (1955).
One of his more promising roles came as "The Runt" in
Meet Boston Blackie (1941),
which started Chester Morris off
in the popular 1940s "B" series as the thief-cum-crimefighter, but the
sidekick role was subsequently taken over by
George E. Stone.
Of his latter films it might be noted that Wagenheim was cast in the
very small but pivotal role of the thief who breaks into the storefront
in which the Frank family is hiding above in
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).
TV took up much of his time in later years and he kept fairly busy
throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Wagenheim played the recurring role of
Halligan on Gunsmoke (1955) (from
1967-1975) and performed until the very end on such shows as
All in the Family (1971)
and Baretta (1975). On March 6, 1979,
the 83-year-old Wagenheim was bludgeoned to death in his Hollywood
apartment following a grocery shopping trip when he surprised a thief
in his home. By sheer horrific coincidence, elderly character actor
Victor Kilian, of
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976)
fame, was found beaten to death by burglars in his Los Angeles-area
apartment just a few days later (March 11th).
shyness, diminutive character actor Charles Wagenheim's career
comprised hundreds upon hundreds of minor but atmospheric parts on
stage, film and TV. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1896, he was the son
of immigrant parents. Enlisting in the military during World War I, he
was compensated for an education by the government and chose to study
dramatics at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York,
graduating in 1923.
After touring with a Shakespearean company, he appeared in a host of
Broadway plays, several of them written, directed and/or produced by
the prolific George Abbott,
including "A Holy Terror" (1925), "Four Walls" (1927) and "Ringside"
(1928). Following a stage part in "Schoolhouse on the Lot" (1938), the
mustachioed Wagenheim turned to Hollywood for work. His dark, graveside
manner, baggy-eyed scowl and lowlife countenance proved ideal for a
number of genres, particularly crime thrillers and westerns.
In films from 1929, the character player scored well when
Alfred Hitchcock chose him to
play the assassin in
Foreign Correspondent (1940).
He went on to enact a number of seedy, unappetizing roles (tramps,
drunks, thieves) over the years but never found the one juicy part that
could have put him at the top of the character ranks. Usually billed
tenth or lower, Wagenheim was more filler than anything else which his
blue-collar gallery of cabbies, waiters, deputies, clerks, morgue
attendants, junkmen, etc., will attest. Some of his better delineated
roles came with
Two Girls on Broadway (1940);
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940);
Halfway to Shanghai (1942);
the cliffhangers
Don Winslow of the Navy (1942)
and
Raiders of Ghost City (1944);
The House on 92nd Street (1945);
A Lady Without Passport (1950);
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953);
and Canyon Crossroads (1955).
One of his more promising roles came as "The Runt" in
Meet Boston Blackie (1941),
which started Chester Morris off
in the popular 1940s "B" series as the thief-cum-crimefighter, but the
sidekick role was subsequently taken over by
George E. Stone.
Of his latter films it might be noted that Wagenheim was cast in the
very small but pivotal role of the thief who breaks into the storefront
in which the Frank family is hiding above in
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).
TV took up much of his time in later years and he kept fairly busy
throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Wagenheim played the recurring role of
Halligan on Gunsmoke (1955) (from
1967-1975) and performed until the very end on such shows as
All in the Family (1971)
and Baretta (1975). On March 6, 1979,
the 83-year-old Wagenheim was bludgeoned to death in his Hollywood
apartment following a grocery shopping trip when he surprised a thief
in his home. By sheer horrific coincidence, elderly character actor
Victor Kilian, of
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976)
fame, was found beaten to death by burglars in his Los Angeles-area
apartment just a few days later (March 11th).