Charles Lane Overview:

Character actor, Charles Lane, was born Charles Gerstle Levison on Jan 26, 1905 in San Francisco, CA. Lane died at the age of 102 on Jul 9, 2007 in Santa Monica, CA and was laid to rest in Home of Peace Cemetery and Emanu-El Mausoleum in Colma, CA.

MINI BIO:

One could think of no better choice to play the kind of "peeper" a husband would hire to trail his wife with a view to grounds for divorce. Consequently, he was cast as bailiffs, reporters, tax inspectors, debt collectors, and various shady characters in pin-stripe suits, trilby hats and (often) rimless spectacles, from behind which beady eyes fastened on their victim. Still acted into his eighties, "though there aren't many roles for old goats like me."

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Character Actors: an Illustrated Directory).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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BlogHub Articles:

1905-2007

By KC on Jul 12, 2007 From Classic Movies

Often, played the kind of characters that made you scowl: uptight, cranky, and certainly not the matinee idol you came to see. Despite all that, he would grow on you, partly because he showed up in so many movies and television programs (over 300) that he became "that one guy"... Read full article


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Charles Lane Quotes:

June Cameron: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That man in there really isn't my husband. He's a... he's a prowler!
Reporter: Lady, I don't care what your husband does for a living.


Hotel Desk Clerk: If I may say so, Mr. Ellis' sickness bears a curious relationship to whiskey.


Charles Spottswoode: Shall we go over here?
Philo Vance: Why, yes. I'm afraid marriage is quite out of the question Miss O'Dell.
Charles Spottswoode: Oh, you're sure about that, are you?
Philo Vance: I'm positive.
Charles Spottswoode: Well how would you like me to tell the world about Jimmy's embezzling from your bank?
Philo Vance: What?
Charles Spottswoode: You heard me.


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Charles Lane Facts
For prime displays of Lane's acting forte, one may see him as the stage manager (billed as "Charles Levison") in Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century (1934), in which he played with John Barrymore, or as the tax assessor in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It with You (1938), pitted against - coincidentally enough - Lionel Barrymore. Thus may one learn who ordinarily got the better (or the worst) of whom! Years later Lane would again star with Lionel in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), as mean Mr. Potter's rent collector.

On a short PBS interview about movies, the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets about the movies. He said that he never got to ride a horse in any of his performances. He told the interviewer he was an excellent horseman and had trained some of the western actors how to ride.

January 30th was named "Charles Lane Day" by the Screen Actors Guild in 2005.

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