"...no man is useless while he has a friend..."
                     Robert Louis Stevenson

 

                                  An Actor With Character….


…William Demarest 

1892 – 1983


                                 

To describe the roles Bill played takes adjectives running the gamut from lovable to irascible, gruff, grizzly, cranky, funny, sweet and back to lovable. However hunting down the personal aspects of his life takes a sudden turn into a blank wall. He hated to be asked about his early years as a professional boxer and, while he was married twice (first to Estelle Collette and second to Lucille Thayer), he never talked much about that, either. So let us add reticent and private to our word list. But above all, Bill Demarest was a master at comedy and talent is a word everyone recognizes!

He was born Carl William Demarest on February 27th, 1892 in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of three brothers who were running headlong into show business. When Bill was 9, they formed a music trio…George on violin, Bill on cello and Rube (named Rubenstein after the famed pianist) tickled the ivories. They toured the vaudeville circuit mixing comedy and music before ending up in New York where Bill became a headliner at the famed Palace in 1914. In 1920 he made his Broadway stage debut in “Silks and Satins’ and also met and married Estelle Collette, a violinist/performer he met on tour. Estelle ( real name Estelle Gordon Zichlin) was the former wife of British novelist Samuel Gordon with a small daughter Phyllis (later novelist Phyllis Gordon Demarest). There is no information on the duration of their marriage but most believe it was short-lived and ended before Bill went to the West Coast.


"Night at Coffee Dan's" 1927

When Bill made his film debut in Columbia’s 1926 film “When the Wife’s Away” studio boss Harry Cohn was just a crew supervisor. He followed that up with three of the first sound shorts ever made…”A Night at Coffee Dan’s”, “Amateur Night” and “The Mail Man” as well as roles in 13 other silent films. Al Jolson considered Demarest one of his favorite actors and gave him the fictional role of Steve Martin in “The Jazz Singer”. It started a feud that lasted for years.

 


Opening of "The Jazz Singer" 1927

“The Jazz Singer” was considered by Jolson and most of Hollywood as the first talking picture. Bill disagreed and said so publicly. “I made the first talking picture….and the second….and the third. The first full length, full-talking picture was Warners’ “Lights of New York” (released after “The Jazz Singer” but had full sound throughout). Bill was right but Jolson never agreed and neither did Hollywood. Later Demarest reprised his role as Steve Martin in the 1946 bio-pic “The Jolson Story” and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. But he didn’t win that one either.


"Charlie Chan at the Opera"

Demarest went back to Broadway in 1928 and stayed 4 years doing musicals like “White Lilacs” and Earl Carroll’s “Sketch Book” and “Vanities”. But he returned to do over 40 films before the decade ended including “The Great Ziegfeld” with William Powell in 1936, “Charlie Chan at the Opera” with Warner Oland  (1936),  as the Army coach in “Rosalie” with Nelson Eddy (1937) and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart in 1939. By 1939 he had been handpicked to join Preston Sturges’ ‘stable’ of stock players and married Lucille Thayer.


"The Great McGinty" (1940)
"Hail the Conquering Hero" (1944)

Demarest began the 1940s with a memorable role in “The Great McGinty” with Brian Donlevy. He was also on hand to greet Ellen Drew when she joined him in the cast of Preston Sturges’ “Christmas in July” to co-star with Dick Powell. Ellen was a waitress in an ice cream parlor on Hollywood Boulevard when he truthfully told her” You oughta be in pictures” and she took him up on it. Two other memorable roles also came his way with Sturges in those ten years….the role of Sergeant Heppelfinger in “Hail the Conquering Hero” with Eddie Bracken and “Miracle at Morgan’s Creek” with Bracken and Betty Hutton.


With Bob Hope and Lucille Ball in "Sorrowful Jones" (1949)
                    

Television came along in the mid to late 1940s to keep Bill very busy.  From 1945 on, he played guest roles on drama shows like “Studio 57”, and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, and episodes of “Duffy’s Tavern”, “Twilight Zone”, “Bonanza” and “Dr. Kildare” among others. But it was “My Three Sons” that everyone remembers. When the health of William Frawley (who played Grandpa O’Casey) became so precarious that the studio insurance wouldn’t cover him, Bill stepped in as “Uncle Charley” and stayed for 44 episodes until the show closed in 1972. He did both films and television for the next two decades. His last feature film was “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood” in 1973 but he continued on television until 1978.

 


"My Three Sons"

All in all, Bill’s career spanned six decades. He made over 142 films on the big screen and scores of radio and television appearances. Ironically, his business card read “When I have the urge to work, I lie down until the urge passes.” Another famous “grumble” that tickled friends was “I have been taking so many treatments for so many ailments that, when I die, I’m going to die healthy!” But Bill did have time for golf, many times playing for charities. Even in his nineties suffering from emphysema, poor eyesight and hearing loss, he managed to get out on the greens.

 

 

William Demarest was 91 when he died in Palm Springs, California on December 28th, 1983 of a heart attack.  He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Yet everyday, on a screen somewhere, Bill is still playing to an audience.