George 'Spanky' McFarland
| George "Spanky" McFarland | |
|---|---|
McFarland as "Spanky" in Our Gang Follies of 1938.
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| Born |
George Robert Phillips McFarland or George Emmett McFarland October 2, 1928 Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | June 30, 1993 (aged 64) Grapevine, Texas, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Cardiac arrest |
| Other names | Spanky |
| Occupation | Child actor |
| Years active | 1931–1944 |
| Spouse(s) | Doris McFarland (?–1993) (his death) (3 children) |
| Children | George Gregory McFarland, Verne Emmett McFarland, Betsy McFarland |
George "Spanky" McFarland (October 2, 1928 – June 30, 1993) was an American actor most famous for his appearances as a child in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The Our Gang shorts were later syndicated to television as The Little Rascals.
McFarland was born in Dallas, Texas, on October 2, 1928 to Virginia Winifred (née Phillips) and Robert Emmett McFarland. He had three siblings: Thomas ("Tommy," who appeared in a few Our Gang episodes as "Dynamite"), Amanda, and Roderick ("Rod"). He attended Lancaster High School in Lancaster, TX.
Before joining the Our Gang comedies, "Sonny," as he was called by his family, modeled children's clothing for a Dallas department store and was also seen around the Dallas area on highway billboards and in print advertisements for Wonder Bread. This established Sonny early on in the local public's eye as an adorable child model and provided experience before cameras.
In January 1931, in response to a trade magazine advertisement from Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California requesting photographs of "cute kids," Spanky's Aunt Dottie (Virginia's sister) sent pictures from Sonny's portfolio. An invitation for a screen test arrived that spring, leading to his acting career. Portions of Spanky's screen test are included in a 1932 Our Gang entry, Spanky.
McFarland's nickname "Spanky" is erroneously said to have arisen from warnings by his mother not to misbehave during one of the initial discussions with Hal Roach in his office. As the story goes, he had a habit of reaching out and grabbing things, and on doing so his mother Virginia would say, "Spanky, spanky, mustn't touch!" While this story has considerable folksy appeal, Spanky himself contradicted the tale, saying that the name was given by a Los Angeles newspaper reporter. The term "a spanky child" was late-19th- to early-20th-century slang for an intelligent, gifted toddler. Spanky was an example of such a child in his earliest movies—a toddler who could act—so the name had meaning to the movie-going audience of that era that was lost for later generations. Use of the "Spanky" name by McFarland for subsequent business or personal activities was expressly granted to McFarland in one of his studio contracts. In later years some family members would affectionately refer to him as "Spank."
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