Grant Mitchell (actor)

John Grant Mitchell Jr. (June 17, 1874 – May 1, 1957)[1] was an American stage actor on Broadway and mainly a character actor on film. He appeared on Broadway from 1902 to 1939 and appeared in more than 125 films between 1930 and 1948.

Grant Mitchell
Born
John Grant Mitchell, Jr.

(1874-06-17)June 17, 1874
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
DiedMay 1, 1957(1957-05-01) (aged 82)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1902–1948

Early years

Mitchell was born John Grant Mitchell, Jr.[1] in Columbus, Ohio, the only son of American Civil War general John G. Mitchell. His paternal grandmother, Fanny Arabella Hayes, was the sister of President Rutherford B. Hayes. He attended Yale University, where he served as feature editor of campus humor magazine The Yale Record.[2]

Like his father, he became an attorney, graduating from the Harvard Law School. However, by his mid-to-late 20s, he tired of his legal practice and turned a long term dream into a reality by becoming an actor on Broadway.[3] He played lead roles in plays such as It Pays to Advertise, The Whole Town's Talking, The Champion, and The Baby Cyclone.

Mitchell was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter).

Stage

Mitchell's Broadway credits include Tide Rising (1936), All the King's Men (1928), One of the Family (1925), Spooks (1925), The Habitual Husband (1924), The Whole Town's Talking (1923), The School for Scandal (1923), Kempy (1921), The Hero (1920), The Champion (1920), and A Tailor-Made Man (1917).[4]

Film

In film, Mitchell initially made an appearance in 1916 and one or two other silents amidst his theater work, but Mitchell's screen career really took off with the advent of sound. His first starring role was in the film Man to Man (1930) from director Allan Dwan. Grant Michell often played the father of the heroine, businessmen, bank clerks or school principals.[5] He usually played supporting characters, but also had a rare lead role in the B film comedy Father Is a Prince (1940).

He made many notable appearances in high-profile films such as Dinner At Eight (1933 David O. Selznick film), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935, as Egeus), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, as a Washington senator), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, as the Stanley family's father), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, as Cary Grant's father-in-law Reverend Harper). He was also notable as Georges Clemenceau in the Oscar-winning film biography The Life of Emile Zola (1937). In John Ford's film classic The Grapes of Wrath (1940), based on John Steinbeck's book, Mitchell played the friendly caretaker of a migrant campground.

Grant Mitchell retired from the film business in 1948 and died a bachelor on May 1, 1957. He was buried next to his father, mother, and stepmother at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.[6]

Complete filmography

References
  1. Wilson, Scott (19 August 2016). Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. (2 volume set). McFarland. p. 520. ISBN 9781476625997. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  2. Yale Banner and Pot Pourri. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1923. p. 192.
  3. Fitzpatrick, Dorothy Parker & Kevin C. (2014). Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923. iUniverse. p. 450. ISBN 9781491722664. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  4. "("Grant Mitchell" search results)". Playbill Vault. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  5. Grant Mitchell at Allmovie
  6. Lehosit 2015, p. 33.

Bibliography
  • Lehosit, Sean V. (2015). West Columbus. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781467114639.
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