Wissenswertes

Despite being frequently cast as the perfect foil for Lucille Ball's scatterbrained TV character, he and Lucy were actually good friends. They met when she was a chorus girl and he worked in RKO musicals.

Was honored on March 16, 2005, at the TVLand Awards for his long career and his 100th birthday. When he received his award, he said in his still-booming voice, "In case anyone's interested, I'm still available!"

He was one of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

One of the founders of the television academy, he was honored at the Emmy Awards in 2005, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, as being its oldest surviving member.

One of the first actors to join the Screen Actors Guild.

Had lived in his Brentwood home from 1964 until his death.

On a short PBS interview about movies, the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets about the movies. He said that he never got to ride a horse in any of his performances. He told the interviewer he was an excellent horseman and had trained some of the western actors how to ride.

Among his most cherished possessions is a letter from director Frank Capra declaring, "Well, Charlie, you've been my No. 1 crutch." Capra cast him in 10 films.

Played a client for McMahon and Tate on the television show Verliebt in eine Hexe (1964) 8 times.

Starting on the stage in the late 1920s, he was a founding member of SAG at its first public meeting on October 8, 1933.

Animators on "The Simpsons" designed the blue-haired lawyer (who often represents Mr. Burns) to resemble him.

Made frequent guest appearances on I Love Lucy (1951) and Hoppla Lucy! (1962), almost always playing some sort of unfriendly bureaucrat with no patience for Lucy's addle-brained schemes.

Survived by his son, Tom; his daughter, Alice; and granddaughter, Lucy.

Perhaps remembered as Homer Bedloe, the scheming railwayman in TV's Petticoat Junction (1963).

Was in seven Oscar Best Picture nominees Die 42. Straße (1933), Mr. Deeds geht in die Stadt (1936), Chicago (1938), Lebenskünstler (1938), Mr. Smith geht nach Washington (1939), Ist das Leben nicht schön? (1946) and Music Man (1962), with You Can't Take It with You winning Best Picture.

Son of Alice (Gerstle) and Nevada-born Jacob Bertha Levison. His family were German Jews, and he had grandparents born in Ichenhausen, Swabia, Bavaria and Kaiserslautern, Rheinland-Pfalz.

January 30th was named "Charles Lane Day" by the Screen Actors Guild in 2005.

In interviews, later in life, Charles Lane said the best actor he ever worked with was Desi Arnaz; with him saying: "Desi was a fine actor.".

Began his acting career performing Chekhov, Shakespeare and Noel Coward at the Pasadena Playhouse during the 1930s.

For prime displays of Lane's acting forte, one may see him as the stage manager (billed as "Charles Levison") in Howard Hawks' Napoleon vom Broadway (1934), in which he played with John Barrymore, or as the tax assessor in Frank Capra's Lebenskünstler (1938), pitted against - coincidentally enough - Lionel Barrymore. Thus may one learn who ordinarily got the better (or the worst) of whom! Years later Lane would again star with Lionel in Ist das Leben nicht schön? (1946), as mean Mr. Potter's rent collector.

Lane's mother, Alice, also lived a long life; she died in 1973 at the age of 99.

Father of Tom Lane.

Charles Lane has appeared in The Donna Reed Show twice though it didn't include him in the credits after the show. It was Season 2 Episode 10; "All Mothers Worry"; released 11/15/1959.

Despite his stern, hard-hearted demeanour in most of his film and television roles, friends and acquaintances have unanimously described Lane as a warm, funny and kind person.

In 1963, Lane appeared in the classic comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, playing the airport manager. (On the DVD commentary track, historian Michael Schlesinger wryly noted, "You do not have a comedy unless you have Charles Lane in it.").