George E. Stone
| George E. Stone | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Gerschon Lichtenstein May 18, 1903 Łódź, Congress Poland |
| Died | May 26, 1967 (aged 64) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Years active | 1925-1962 |
| Spouse(s) | Ida Pleet (1937–38) (divorced) Marjorie Ramey (1946–48) (divorced) |
George E. Stone (May 18, 1903 – May 26, 1967) was Polish-born American character actor in movies, radio, and television.
He was born Gerschon Lichtenstein in Łódź, Congress Poland into a Jewish family. And, so as Gerschon Lichtenstein, he sailed from the Port Hamburg, Germany, as a steerage passenger on board the S/S President Grant, which arrived at the Port of New York on May 29, 1913; at Ellis Island, he passed federal immigrant inspection with his two sisters and a brother . As an actor, Stone's slight build and very expressive face first attracted attention in the 1927 silent-film Seventh Heaven, where he played the local street thug The Sewer Rat. Originally billed as Georgie Stone, he made a successful transition to talking pictures in Warner Bros.' Tenderloin, speaking in a pleasant, slightly nasal tenor. Stone was then typecast in streetwise roles, often playing a Runyonesque mobster or a gangland boss's assistant. He was best known as Rico Bandello's right-hand man Otero in the gangster classic Little Caesar (1931). He adopted a dapper pencil moustache for these screen roles. One of his most famous appearances was in the classic musical 42nd Street (1933), in which wiseguy Stone assesses a promiscuous chorus girl: "She only said no once, and then she didn't hear the question!" His one starring film (as George E. Stone) was Universal Pictures' gangster comedy The Big Brain.
In 1939, comedy producer Hal Roach hired Stone for his film The Housekeeper's Daughter. It was a difficult role: Stone had to play a mentally retarded murderer in a sweet, sympathetic manner. Stone went clean-shaven, emphasizing a boyish, innocent look, and played the part so sensitively that Roach often cast him in other films. In 1942, Stone burlesqued Hirohito in Roach's wartime comedy The Devil with Hitler.
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