Trivia

Founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, which angered many studio heads but did not result in a loss of work.

Father of public television producer Stephen Talbot, a former child actor who was best known as Beaver's friend Gilbert on Leave It to Beaver (1957).

Was the first actor to play Commissioner Gordon from Batman, and the first actor to play Lex Luthor from Superman.

His youngest daughter, Margaret Talbot, is a staff writer for "The New Yorker" magazine and has written a book about him, "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century", (Riverhead Books, New York) published in November 2012.

He the last surviving founding member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). He was also the first Warner Brothers contract player to join SAG.

Was working on his memoirs when he died in 1996 at the age of 94.

Father of journalist David Talbot, founding editor of Salon.com.

Between 1932-34 he appeared in 28 films, mostly for Warner Bros.

He may be the only actor to have starred in both leading roles in major productions of Neil Simon's play, "The Odd Couple," appearing in different national road company tours in the 1960s as Felix Unger (the Jack Lemmon role) and Oscar Madison (the Walter Matthau role).

In the span of two years (1950-51), he appeared in 29 films.

In the mid to late 1950s he was featured in two TV series at the same time, playing the recurring roles of the star's "best friend" on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952) and The Bob Cummings Show (1955).

During a busy stretch of work in movie serials and live television in the early '50s, he lived at the Highland Towers Apartments at 1922 N. Highland Ave . in Hollywood (it is, as of this writing, a registered landmark). From 1955-89 he and his family lived at 3942 Goodland Ave. in Studio City, CA. where he was the town's "honorary mayor" in the 1960s.

Played Commissioner Gordon in the 1949 Batman serial (Batman and Robin (1949)), before becoming a staple in the films of Edward D. Wood Jr. Director Tim Burton later did his own version of "Batman" (Batman (1989)) and a biopic of Wood (Ed Wood (1994)).

Did voice-over work for two PBS documentaries written and produced by his son Stephen Talbot. He was the voice of Dashiell Hammett in the Peabody Award-winning biography The Case of Dashiell Hammett (1982) and narrated the Emmy-nominated World Without Walls (1986).

Pulled double duty doing voice-over work for Warner Brothers' coming attractions trailers in the early 1930--that's his voice on the El ladrón galante (1932) coming attraction reel.

Took part in one of Hollywood's most elaborate and extravagant publicity junkets: traveling on board a Warner Bros./General Electric "42nd Street Special" train, barnstorming across the country, stopping in dozens of cities to promote the Busby Berkeley musical [xx xxx], and ending up in Washington, DC, to support US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his first inauguration in March 1933. Talbot was billed as the "Romeo" on the train in a group that included Bette Davis, Glenda Farrell, Leo Carrillo, Preston Foster, comedian Joe E. Brown, Olympic gold-medal swimmer Eleanor Holm, cowboy star Tom Mix (and his horse!) and "42nd Street" chorus girls.

During a sketch on Plaza sésamo (1969) in 1980, Bert and Ernie watch Bert's goldfish swimming in their tank. The fish are named Bernice, Lyle, Talbot, and Melissa, Talbot's wife.

His granddaughter, Caitlin Talbot, studied acting in the Master's program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where she starred in the play, "Orlando.".

Grandfather of Joe Talbot.

He has the distinction of appearing as General Roberts in Edward Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space", a movie that many considered so terribly awful when it came out that, over the years, it has become notorious as a highly popular cult-classic today.