Thomas Mitchell

 

Thomas Mitchell was a great American actor of the 20th century renown for his talent and versatility. Some of his work as an actor includes Lost Horizon (1937), Stagecoach (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and High Noon (1952). In 1940, Mitchell won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the drunken Doc Boone in Stagecoach.

In July 1892, Thomas Mitchell was born as a first-generation American to Irish immigrants in New Jersey. His father died when he was a young boy. His family had a journalistic background, and Thomas followed his father and brother into newspaper reporting after high school. Reporting led him to Newark, Washington, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. He started writing comedy skits for theater and eventually became an actor in 1913. He first married anne Brewer in 1915, had a child with her, and then divorced her in 1935. He met Charles Coburn, who gave Thomas needed experience with Shakespeare. In 1916, Mitchell debuted in Under Sentence on Broadway. He also took to writing and directing his own plays, sometimes for other companies through the 1930s. He was involved in the production of 29 plays.

In 1923 he debuted in silent film then returned to Broadway. His play Little Accident was produced as a film in 1930 and 1932. It was then retitled Casanova Brown in 1944. After his part in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, Mitchell was very famous in Hollywood for his acting. He was particularly beloved for his comical one-liners and versatility as an actor. He then married Rachel Hartzell in 1937, but divorced her in 1939. He was more involved with television playhouse by 1951, and he starred in two early TV series: Mayor of the Town (1954) and Glencannon (1959). He then remarried  his first wife Anne Brewer in 1941 and remained married to her unto his death. He died December 17, 1962 in Beverly Hills, LA, California of bone cancer.