Jay C. Flippen

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jay C. Flippen
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles
OccupationActor
Years active1920–1971
Spouse
​
(m. 1947)​

Jay C. Flippen (March 6, 1899 – February 3, 1971) was an American character actor who often played crusty sergeants, police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s and 1950s.[1] Before his motion-picture career he was a leading vaudeville comedian and master of ceremonies.

Biography

Flippen was born on March 6, 1899, in

Palace Theatre in New York six times between March 1926 and February 1931.[5]

At one time, he was a radio announcer for New York Yankees games and was one of the first game-show announcers. Between 1924 and 1929, Flippen recorded more than 30 songs for Columbia, Perfect, and Brunswick.

In 1928, Flippen proclaimed he would no longer perform in blackface.[6] His first film, the 1928 Vitaphone short subject The Ham What Am, captures his vaudeville act, but not in blackface: he does a comedy monologue and finishes with a song. His Southern-drawl delivery may well be the same that he had used in blackface. Flippen became popular as a master of ceremonies on vaudeville bills, and emceed movie shorts in the 1930s.

When the Broadway stage revue Hellzapoppin became a success, its stars Olsen and Johnson decided to send the show on tour while they were playing it in New York. They hired Flippen to emcee the roadshow version, with comedian Happy Felton alongside him as a facsimile of Olsen and Johnson.

Flippen's film career started in earnest in 1947. Some of Flippen's most noteworthy film work came in support of James Stewart in five of the films the two made under the direction of Anthony Mann during the 1950s. He gave notable supporting performances in three John Wayne films: as a humorous, larcenous Marine air-crew line chief in Flying Leathernecks (1951), as Wayne's commanding general in Jet Pilot (1957), and as a wheelchair-using senior partner of Wayne's in Hellfighters (1968). He also made a fourth film that co-starred John Wayne (How the West Was Won, 1962), but played his only scene with Debbie Reynolds and Gregory Peck.

He appeared on television, including a 1960 guest-starring role as Gabe Jethrow in the episode "Four Came Quietly" on the

Chief Petty Officer Homer Nelson on the NBC sitcom Ensign O'Toole, with Dean Jones
in the starring role.

He guest-starred on CBS'

Ironside
(season one, "A Very Cool Hot Car").

Personal life

He was married for 24 years to screenwriter Ruth Brooks Flippen.

While filming Cat Ballou in 1965, he had to have a leg amputated due to a serious infection, originally resulting from a minor scrape with a car door, and likely complicated by diabetes.[7]

Death

Flippen died February 3, 1971, aged 71, during surgery for an aneurysm of an artery.[1]

Selected filmography

Television

  • Wanted: Dead or Alive
     – episode "Miracle at Pot Hole" – Chute Wilson (1958)
  • Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
     – episode "The Griswold Murder" – Pop Griswold (1959)
  • The Untouchables – episode "You Can't Pick the Number" – Al Morrisey (1959)
  • Stagecoach West – episode "Not in Our Stars" – Aaron Sutter (1961)
  • The Dick Van Dyke Show – episode "The Return of Happy Spangler" – Happy Spangler (1962)
  • The Untouchables – episode "Fall Guy" – Big Joe Holvak (1962)
  • Ensign O'Toole – 32 episodes – Chief Petty Officer Homer Nelson (1962-1963)
  • Bonanza
     – episode "The Prime of Life" – Barney Fuller (1963)
  • Gunsmoke
     – episode "Owney Tupper Had a Daughter" – Owney (1964)
  • The Virginian – episode "Ride to Delphi" – Stage Depot Agent (uncredited) (1966)
  • The Virginian – episode "The Wolves Up Front, the Jackals Behind" – Pa Colby (1966)
  • A Man Called Shenandoah – episode "The Imposter" – Andrew O'Rourke (1966)
  • Ironside – episode "A Very Cool Hot Car" – Muldoon (1967)
  • The Virginian – episode "The Barren Ground" – Asa Keogh (1967)
  • The Virginian – episode "Stopover" – Judge (1969)
  • Rawhide – episode "Incident of the Widowed Dove" – Marshal Lindstrom (1959)
  • The Name of The Game – episode "Chains of Command" – Zack Whitten (1970)

References

  1. ^
    New York Times
    . February 5, 1971. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  2. ISBN 9780786450190
    . Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  3. ^ "Jay C. Flippen to Record for the Columbia Co." Talking Machine World, 15 August 1921.
  4. ^ "Flippen to Record," 1921.
  5. ^ The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville, Anthony Slide, p. 186
  6. ^ "Flippen Gives Up Burnt Cork." Brooklyn Standard-Union, 6 October 1928.
  7. ^ J.C. Flippen profile, Encyclopedia of Arkansas, encyclopediaofarkansas.net; accessed March 26, 2017.

External links

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