Born January 19, 1866 Character Actor Harry Davenport!
A veteran stage actor, Harry Davenport made his film debut at age 48. In his 37-year film career, he appeared in over 160 films and shorts, playing his share of grandfathers, judges and doctors. His films include Gone with the Wind (as Dr. Meade), Meet Me in St. Louis (as grandpa) and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (as great uncle Judge Thaddeus Turner). He also co-founded The White Rats which would later become known as the Actors Equity Association.
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Good heavens, woman! This is a war, not a garden party!
-Harry Davenport as Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind
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That young man is so excited he’s liable to leave on his
honeymoon without Rose.
-Harry Davenport as Grandpa in Meet Me in St Louis
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And who the devil is Richard Nugent???
-Harry Davenport as great uncle Judge Thaddeus Turner in The Bachelor
and the Bobby-Soxer
(pictured above with Myrna Loy as Margaret Turner, also a judge)
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Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
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Could this have been the Shakespearean actor I once saw at the old Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York’s Greenwich Village? I was about 12 I think so it must have been around 1950 or ’51. I was a committed movie fan, haunting the Thalia, Symphony, Beacon, Loews and RKO movie houses on Broadway’s upper west side. I must have seen him in GWTW at some point (made the year I was born) so Davenport must have been “up there” in age by then. My mother and I sat and watched astounded at the absolute, complete hamminess of the actor as he recited excerpts from Shakespearean plays and his Hamlet was surely, the oldest ever seen on any stage. For some reason his name just came to mind and I wondered what other things he had been in.