Stars & Players · Biography
Wallace Ford
1898–1966 · Actor
Biography
Wallace Ford (12 February 1898 – 11 June 1966) was an English-born naturalized American stage and screen actor. Usually playing wise-cracking characters, he combined a tough but friendly-faced demeanor with a small but powerful, stocky physique.
Born Samuel Jones Grundy in Bolton, Lancashire, England, he spent his childhood in a Dr. Barnardo's home. At an early age he was adopted by a farmer from Manitoba, Canada, where he was ill treated. About age eleven, Ford ran away and did odd jobs, later becoming an usher in a theatre.
Following his discharge from the Army after WWI, he became a vaudeville actor in a stock company before performing on Broadway.
He started on a film career when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave him a part in the film Possessed (1931) and went on to appear in over 200 films, including 13 directed by John Ford.
Wallace Ford is buried in an unmarked grave in Culver City, California's Holy Cross Cemetery.
From Wikipedia.
Notable Noir Roles
A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine, and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin, team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin's wife.
War heroes Rip Murdock and Johnny Drake are sent to Washington, D.C, to receive top honors for their service. Johnny, seemingly terrified by the publicity that awaits him, jumps off the train and lat…
Two U.S. Treasury ("T-men") agents go undercover in Detroit, and then Los Angeles, in an attempt to break a U.S. currency counterfeiting ring.
A crook on the run hides out in an innocent girl's apartment.
