
Henry O'Neill
Acting
Biography
Henry O'Neill (1891–1961) was an American film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly roles during the 1930s and 1940s. O'Neill began his acting career on the stage, after dropping out of college to join a traveling theatre company. He served in the military in World War I, then returned to the stage. In the early 1930s he began appearing in films, including The Big Shakedown, Santa Fe Trail, Anchors Aweigh, The Green Years, and The Reckless Moment. His last film was The Wings of Eagles. Henry O'Neill died in 1961 at the age of 69.
Known For

In 1850s Louisiana, the willfulness of a tempestuous Southern belle threatens to destroy all who care for her.
Jezebel

In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a railroad line.
Dodge City

As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, George Armstrong Custer and four friends are assigned to the 2nd Cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. While there they aid in the capture and execution of the abolitionist, John Brown following the Battle of Harper's Ferry.
Santa Fe Trail

Danny, a poor northern Californian Mexican-American, inherits two houses from his grandfather and is quickly taken advantage of by his vagabond friends.
Tortilla Flat

Two sailors on shore leave head out for four days of partying – only to become involved in the affairs of an aspiring singer and her precocious nephew.
Anchors Aweigh

A reporter turned tax agent infiltrates a crime ring to catch a racketeer, working with the mobster's bookkeeper. When she agrees to testify, an informant exposes them and she's kidnapped.
Special Agent

Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.
The Fighting 69th

A Navy veteran with one leg fights to make himself a success.
The Go-Getter

A Traveler's Aid worker who delights in solving people's problems gets mixed up with gangsters.
Stranded

After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner, former detective Johnny Blake publicly punches him, convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Bugs" Fenner, meanwhile, is certain that Blake is a police agent.
Bullets or Ballots

Rich kid Danny Churchill has a taste for wine, women and song, but not for higher education. So his father ships him to an all-male college out West where there's not supposed to be a female for miles. But before Danny arrives, he spies a pair of legs extending out from under a stalled roadster. They belong to the Dean's granddaughter, Ginger Gray, who is more interested in keeping the financially strapped college open than falling for Danny's romantic line. At least at first...
Girl Crazy

Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.
They Drive by Night

The story of Frank W. "Spig" Wead - a Navy-flyer turned screenwriter.
The Wings of Eagles

A private stationed in Hawaii gets involved with the general's engaged daughter. In order to avoid a scandal, the pair break up, but meet again years later when he's at West Point producing the annual play that turns out to star her.
Flirtation Walk

A well-cloistered and protected-against-reality group of college students get their diplomas in the heart of the Great Depression, and quickly learn that the piece of paper the diploma is written on is worth about eighteen-dollars-a-week in the job-market...for the lucky ones. Some of them fare even worse.
Gentlemen Are Born

A trucker with a pregnant wife fights a New York mobster's protection racket.
Racket Busters

A charming racketeer seduces the DA's stepdaughter for revenge, then falls in love.
Johnny Eager

Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.
Honky Tonk

Jury foreman Edward Weldon's questioning leads to the death sentence for Ethel Saxon. His daughter Stella claims to have killed her lover, the gangster Garboni, just as Saxon was to sit in the electric chair.
Midnight

Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.