Jackie "Butch" Jenkins
Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins | |
---|---|
Born | Jack Dudley Jenkins August 29, 1937 Los Angeles, U.S |
Died | August 14, 2001 | (aged 63)
Years active | 1943–1948 |
Jackie "Butch" Jenkins (August 29, 1937 – August 14, 2001) was an American child actor who had a brief but notable film career during the 1940s.
Career
Born Jack Dudley Jenkins in
He was given star billing for the 1946 film
Jenkins was one of several popular child actors at MGM during the 1940s, and was educated at the studio's school along with other youngsters under contract to the studio such as Elizabeth Taylor, Roddy McDowall, Margaret O'Brien, Dean Stockwell, Jane Powell, Claude Jarman Jr. and Darryl Hickman.[citation needed]
He was regarded as a "scene-stealer" and was notable among the studio's child stars for not being conventionally "cute". He was described by film writers Sol Chaneles and Albert Wolsky as "an audience favourite as an all-American boy [with a] space between his teeth, freckles and a tousled mop of hair – a marked contrast to the pretty children who usually appeared on screen."[1] Pauline Kael wrote approvingly of his effectiveness as a performer, saying that his appearance as a five-year-old who enjoys waving at trains in The Human Comedy helped elevate the film, while his performance in National Velvet made him "the little brother of everyone's dreams".[2] In 1946, exhibitors (movie theater owners) voted him the second-most promising "star of tomorrow".[3]
Later life and death
Jenkins retired from acting at the age of eleven, after he developed a
Later described as a "businessman-outdoorsman", Jenkins established a successful career away from Hollywood and lived for many years in
On August 14, 2001, he died at age 63 in
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1943 | The Human Comedy | Ulysses Macauley | |
1944 | An American Romance | Thomas Jefferson Dangos - Age 6 | Uncredited |
National Velvet | Donald Brown | ||
1945 | Our Vines Have Tender Grapes | Arnold Hanson | |
Abbott and Costello in Hollywood | Himself | Uncredited | |
1946 | Little Mister Jim | Little Jim Tukker | |
Boys' Ranch | 'Butch' Taylor | ||
1947 | My Brother Talks to Horses | Lewie Penrose | |
1948 | Summer Holiday | Tommy Miller | |
The Bride Goes Wild | Danny | ||
Big City | Louis Keller | (final film role) |
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0-7064-0387-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ISBN 0-09-933550-6.
- ^ "The Stars of To-morrow". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. September 10, 1946. p. 11 Supplement: The Sydney Morning Herald Magazine. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
- ^ Dargis, Manohla. "Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
- ^ a b Mastrangelo, Joseph P. (1978). "Butch Jenkins - A Child Star At Age 9, a Retiree at 10", The Washington Post, April 23, 1978; retrieved November 3, 2017.
- ^ ISBN 9781476625997– via Google Books.
Bibliography
- Holmstrom, John. The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995, Norwich, Michael Russell, 1996, pp. 205–206.
- Best, Marc. Those Endearing Young Charms: Child Performers of the Screen, South Brunswick and New York: Barnes & Co., 1971, pp. 134–138.
External links
- Jackie "Butch" Jenkins at IMDb