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Eddie Bracken

Biography

Eddie Bracken

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Overview

  • Born
    February 7, 1915 · Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
  • Died
    November 14, 2002 · Montclair, New Jersey, USA (complications from surgery)
  • Birth name
    Edward Vincent Bracken
  • Height
    1.70 m

Biography

    • This owl-faced comic actor enjoyed his first featured film role in the RKO production Too Many Girls (1940), in which he reprised the role of "JoJo Jordan" that he had played in the Broadway stage version of that musical. (Into the pantheon of pop-music standards came one that Bracken had introduced in "Too Many Girls", the melancholy "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"). But the then 20-year-old Eddie Bracken was by no means new to show business in general or Hollywood in particular. He had played in vaudeville and performed in nightclubs by the time he was 9, and had just later appeared on screen in four of the Hal Roach "Our Gang" comedy two-reeler film shorts. It was on account of his appearances in musicals and comedies as a shy, giggling, clumsy, stammering, sentimental, self-effacing, would-be hero that Bracken achieved popularity, not to say star status, among movie audiences of the 1940s. The director Preston Sturges served up those attributes of Eddie Bracken particularly well in two of Sturges's more memorable comedies. As "Norval Jones" in Miracle au village (1943) (filmed in 1942; released 1944), Bracken portrays a man whose destiny others have foisted upon him. A certain "Trudy Kockenlocker" (played by Betty Hutton), having attended a party for military servicemen, later finds herself to be pregnant but has no recollection of who the father might be. So she persuades the always-befuddled Norval to take credit for the child and marry her. Somehow, Norval emerges a true hero in the end, but you'll have to see the film to discover why. As Norval Jones was physically unfit for military service, so also was "Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith", with Eddie Bracken in the role, in Preston Sturges's Héros d'occasion (1944). Solely on the basis of his father's reputation as a World War I U.S. Marine hero, a group of saloon-hopping World War II-era U.S. Marines, led by a crusty senior-level sergeant (played to a tee by William Demarest), elevate the physical reject Truesmith into a modern, combat-decorated veteran, and then usher him into an election campaign for Truesmith's hometown mayoralty. The complications, including a love interest (in the person of actress Ella Raines, are by now well under way. As Eddie Bracken's age increased his popularity -- or perhaps that of the genre of film vehicles that was his forte -- decreased, and in 1953 he essentially retired from the screen, moving on to pursue theatrical ventures. But he would return to Hollywood eventually, and we have been fortunate to see him in character roles in theatrical and TV films through the 80's and 90's.
      - IMDb mini biography by: Bill Takacs <kinephile@aol.com>

Family

  • Spouse
      Anna Constance Nickerson(September 25, 1939 - August 20, 2002) (her death, 5 children)
  • Children
      Michael Bracken
      Dave Bracken
      Judy Bracken
      Carolyn Bracken
      Susan Bracken
  • Parents
      Joseph L. Bracken
      Catherine Bracken

Trivia

  • His wife of 63 years, Connie, a former actress, died in August of 2002, just three months before Eddie's passing. Connie was his leading lady in the Broadway production of "What a Life" in 1938.
  • He died in hospital in Montclair, New Jersey while undergoing surgery for a crushed spinal disc in his neck.
  • He was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6751 Hollywood Boulevard and for Radio at 1651 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
  • Eddie won a Best Actor (Musical) Tony nomination playing Horace Vandergelder in the Broadway revival of "Hello, Dolly!" opposite Carol Channing in 1978.
  • While in elementary school, Eddie appeared as the rich kid in "The New York Kiddie Troupers," a series of silent movie shorts filmed in New York.

Quotes

  • I could never just be an actor, that would be like having the rest of the day to die in . . . I'm in other businesses, most of them failures. Failures don't scare me. You make it or you don't.
  • I am the theater's number-one takeover guy for everybody. It's a great compliment to be asked to replace such a variety of performers.
  • I've made a good living and I've had a good time doing it. Has it been tough? You bet! I went broke three times, but I'm proud of the way I've recovered. You never hear any scandals about me. I'm well respected. I've got a happy family, a nice home, and I'm working in my business. What more could I ask?
  • I'm not a comedian; I'm an actor who does comedy.
  • [about Frank Moran] Frank was a very intelligent man. When he was a fighter he was hit in the larynx area, and that's why he talked the way he did. He had the voice of a pretty stupid guy, and so people would come away from him thinking, "My God, where did he get all his intelligence?" . . . and on the set he was just so wonderful--we'd sit around and have so much fun.

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