Billy House

Billy House, born William H. Comstock on May 7, 1889, was an American actor, vaudevillian, and Broadway performer who died on September 23, 1961. His stage name was likely coined for use in burlesque theaters, according to actor and director Orson Welles, who was among his admirers.

House entered show business as a trumpet player and subsequently worked in circuses, vaudeville, burlesque theaters, and radio dramas before establishing himself on Broadway and in film. Because his earliest theatrical work unfolded in burlesque venues and smaller off-Broadway stages, much of it went unnoticed by major critics, making it difficult to evaluate his work prior to the late 1920s. His estate memorabilia, which included vaudeville routines, passed to variety theater historian Milt Larsen. That material was held at the Society for the Preservation of Variety Arts in the Friday Morning Club building during the 1970s and 1980s before being relocated to the basement of the Magic Castle around 1991.

House's Broadway career spanned 1928 to 1948 and included the musicals Luckee Girl, White Horse Inn, Murder at the Vanities, and Show Boat, as well as the play Troyka. His 1928 appearance in Luckee Girl drew notice from national publications, with Time magazine describing him as moving about the stage "like a grinning Guava jelly, singing 'Whoopee' with suave insinuations," while the New York Times credited him with giving "considerable liveliness" to the production. In the 1933 Earl Carroll production of Murder at the Vanities, House performed through a heart attack, leaving the stage only when not required and returning for each entrance without fail, as his co-star Pauline Moore later recalled. Time noted his physical presence in that production while acknowledging his contribution to its conclusion. His role in the 1936 musical White Horse Inn, which received enthusiastic notices from the New York Times, the New York Herald-Tribune, and the New York American, was credited by one scholar of the production as providing House with a significant boost to his career.

House began making short films around 1930, frequently collaborating with director Aubrey Scotto on two-reelers including The Dunker, Retire Inn, Bullmania, and Out of Bounds, all of which House also wrote, drawing at least in part on previously copyrighted theatrical routines. Between 1930 and 1931 he completed at least four additional two-reelers and appeared in his first feature film, Smart Money, which marked his initial work alongside Edward G. Robinson and Boris Karloff. As the short-subject format declined, House transitioned into character roles in feature films. He served as a live-action model for the Disney animated characters of Doc in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Smee in Peter Pan. His larger film roles were concentrated between 1945 and 1952 and included the role of Lord Mortimer in Boris Karloff's Bedlam (1946), a significant part in The Egg and I (1947), appearances in Inner Sanctum (1948) and Naked Gun (1956), and the role of Friar Tuck opposite Alan Hale's Little John in Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950).

Welles cast House on three separate occasions: The Stranger (1946), The Fountain of Youth (1956), and Touch of Evil (1958). Having followed House's burlesque work for years before their first collaboration, Welles described him as a "very funny man" with "great old-fashioned slang." House's role in The Stranger as a comic druggist who played checkers was not originally central to the film, but Welles expanded the character through last-minute script additions on set, revisions that reduced the prominence of Edward G. Robinson's role and prompted Robinson to complain to studio executives. Welles ultimately characterized The Stranger as House's picture. Late in his career, House also made at least one television appearance.