He played 'Pap' in the 1939 version of Huckleberry Finn and typically was cast as the brutish villain in adventure and western films. He appeared in I Shot Jesse James in 1949 and the following year appeared in The Flame and the Arrow. Before joining the New England repertory company at age 18, he drove laundry trucks for his father's business; by his 30s he was on Broadway.
