Roscoe Karns
Acting
Born 1891-09-06
Died 1970-02-06
San Bernardino, California, USA
143 credits
Read biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Roscoe Karns (September 7, 1891 – February 6, 1970) was an American actor who appeared in nearly 150 films between 1915 and 1964. He specialized in cynical, wise-cracking (and often tipsy) characters, and his rapid-fire delivery enlivened many comedies and crime thrillers in the 1930s and 1940s. Though he appeared in numerous silent films, such as Wings and Beggars of Life, his career didn't really take off until sound arrived. Arguably his best-known film role was the annoying bus passenger Oscar Shapeley, who tries to pick up Claudette Colbert in the Oscar-winning comedy It Happened One Night (1934), quickly followed by one of his best performances as the boozy press agent Owen O'Malley in Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century. (Six years later, he co-starred as one of the reporters in another Hawks classic, His Girl Friday.) In 1937, Paramount teamed him with Lynne Overman as a pair of laconic private eyes in two B comedy-mysteries, Murder Goes to College and Partners in Crime. From 1950 to 1954, Karns played the title role in the popular DuMont Television Network series Rocky King, Inside Detective. His son, character actor Todd Karns, also appeared in that series.
From 1959 to 1962, Karns was cast as Admiral Walter Shafer in seventy-three of the ninety-five episodes of the CBS military sitcom/drama series, Hennesey, starring Jackie Cooper in the title role of a United States Navy physician, and Abby Dalton as nurse Martha Hale.
His final film was another Hawks comedy, Man's Favorite Sport?, in 1964.
Karns was born in San Bernardino, California, and died in Los Angeles. Description above from the Wikipedia article Roscoe Karns, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Filmography
— top 60 of 143
The Lucy Show
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
December Bride
Rocky King, Detective
Hennesey
His Girl Friday
It Happened One Night
Wings
The Jazz Singer
Dollar Down
Alice in Wonderland
The Ten Commandments
Front Page Woman
Man's Favorite Sport?
Onionhead
Woman of the Year
Ladies Must Live
Object: Alimony
A Lady's Profession
If I Had a Million
They Drive by Night
Beggars of Life
Woman Trap
Copy
You and Me
Dangerous to Know
You'd Be Surprised
Twentieth Century
Inside Detective
Clarence
Stage Door Canteen
Night of Mystery
Dirigible
Conquering the Woman
The Woman in Red
Old Acquaintance
Yokel Boy
Come On, Marines!
Petticoat Politics
King of Chinatown
Gambling Ship
Stowaway
Tip-Off Girls
Bluff
Something Always Happens
Shoot the Works
Footsteps in the Dark
His Butler's Sister
The Navy Way
The Gay Vagabond
Warming Up
The Inside Story
The Roadhouse Murder
Cain and Mabel
The Life of the Party
Night After Night
That's My Man
Everything's on Ice
Minstrel Man
High Pressure
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