Douglass Dumbrille

Douglass Dumbrille
as J.D. Morgan in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races (1937)
Born	(1889-10-13)October 13, 1889 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Died	April 2, 1974(1974-04-02) (aged 84) Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Heart attack
Resting place	Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1924–64
Spouse(s)	Jessie Lawson (1910–58, her death) Patricia Mowbray (1960–74, his death)

Douglass Dumbrille (October 13, 1889 – April 2, 1974) was a Canadian actor and one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood.

Douglass Dumbrille was born in Hamilton, Ontario. As a young man, he was employed as a bank clerk in Hamilton while pursuing an interest in acting. He eventually left banking to work with a stock company that led him to Chicago, Illinois, and a job with another stock company that toured the United States. In 1913, the East Coast film industry was flourishing and that year he appeared in the film What Eighty Million Women Want, but it would be another 11 years before he appeared on screen again. In 1924, he made his Broadway debut and worked off and on in the theatre for several years while supplementing his income by selling such products as car accessories, tea, insurance, real estate and books.

During the Great Depression, Dumbrille moved to the West Coast of the U.S. where he specialized in playing secondary character roles alongside the great stars of the day. His physical appearance and suave voice equipped him for roles as slick politician, corrupt businessman, crooked sheriff, or unscrupulous lawyer. A consummate professional, he was highly regarded by the studios and was sought out by Cecil B. DeMille, Frank Capra, Hal Roach and other prominent Hollywood filmmakers. A friend of fellow Canadian-born director Allan Dwan, Dumbrille played Athos in Dwan’s 1939 adaptation of The Three Musketeers.

In a long and successful career, Douglass Dumbrille had roles in more than 200 motion pictures and, with the advent of television, made numerous appearances in the 1950s and 1960s. He had the ability to project a balance of menace and pomposity in roles as the "heavy" in comedy films, such as those of the Marx Brothers or Abbott and Costello. He played similar roles in Capra's 1934 film Broadway Bill and the 1950 remake, Riding High. He also appeared in DeMille's 1938 version of The Buccaneer and twenty years later in the 1958 color remake.