Willie Best Overview:

Character actor, Willie Best, was born on May 27, 1913 in Sunflower, MS. Best died at the age of 48 on Feb 27, 1962 in Hollywood, CA .

MINI BIO:

American performer who became the epitome of the black servant who panicked at the slightest provocation. The image was much castigated in later years but Best, who was initially billed as "Sleep 'n' Eat," after a character he played, milked it to great effect, especially in comic chillers. Busy in television after his film career until he became terminally ill with the cancer that killed him at 48.

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

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Willie Best Quotes:

[upon being informed that he'll sleep in the basement next to the ape's cage]
Exodus: Get me an umbrella and I'll sleep on the roof!


Larry Lawrence: If that's Raspy Kelly, I owe him some money.
Alex: Well, from the tone of his infections, you better pay him.


Newton: What kind of snuff you want? The left-handed or the right-handed kind?
Sleepy: I want the sniffin' kind.


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Willie Best Facts
He came to Hollywood serving as a chauffeur for a Mississippi white couple on vacation, and decided to stay and seek a career in show business.

In his earliest film appearances, in the early 1930s, if he was given screen credit he was billed as "Sleep 'n' Eat".

Bob Hope referred to Best, as his comedic co-star in The Ghost Breakers (1940), as one of the finest talents he had ever worked with.

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