Don Barclay

Don Barclay, born Donn Van Tassel Barclay on December 26, 1892, in Ashland, Oregon, was an American actor, artist, and caricaturist who died on October 16, 1975. His career extended from a 1915 appearance with the Keystone Cops through a 1964 role in Mary Poppins, encompassing stage, screen, and voice work across five decades.

Barclay began his performing career with the Ziegfeld Follies and went on to appear on Broadway between 1916 and 1932. His stage credits included the musicals Oh! Oh! Nurse, Go-Go, Nina Rosa, and Merry-Go-Round, as well as the revue America. During his time in Bristol, England, he befriended a young, then-unknown actor named Archie Leach, who would later achieve fame as Cary Grant. The two developed a two-man comedy act together in New York, frequently shared living quarters in both New York and Hollywood, and maintained a lifelong friendship. His screen career included voice work for Walt Disney, who regarded Barclay as a good luck charm.

Parallel to his acting work, Barclay developed a prolific career as a painter and caricaturist, frequently producing work directly on film sets while working alongside other actors. His caricatures of celebrities were displayed in establishments across the country, including the Masquers Club in Los Angeles, and were produced in large numbers for servicemen in military barracks. Bob Hope collected a series of ceramic mugs Barclay created based on his caricatures, featuring likenesses of Frank Sinatra, Joan Crawford, Jimmy Durante, and Lou Costello. Two of Barclay's caricatures of Hope, titled Old Four Eyes and Bob Hope and Elf, are archived on the Library of Congress website devoted to Bob Hope. Actress and director Diane Keaton purchased a clown painting by Barclay, which prompted her to begin collecting clown paintings and ultimately led to her publishing a book titled Clown Paintings. Auction houses including Christie's have featured his smaller works, among them a painting of Stan Laurel, while his larger paintings are considered rare and collectible.

During the period preceding World War II, Barclay spent time with General Claire Lee Chennault's 14th AAF unit, then known as the China Blitzers and later famous as the Flying Tigers, producing illustrated portraits of every member of the group. From October to November 1943, he performed a one-man USO show, designated No. 302, touring military bases across North Africa, Arabia, India, and China while drawing caricatures of the servicemen he encountered. Upon returning to China in 1945, he estimated he had completed more than 10,000 such caricatures.

Barclay eventually earned more income from his art than from acting and transitioned to working as a full-time artist. In a December 3, 1959 letter to his former secretary Ernest Murphy, Stan Laurel noted that Barclay had become the owner of several motels in Scottsdale, Arizona. By 1970, Barclay had retired and purchased a home in the Desert Park Estates neighborhood of Palm Springs, California, where he died in 1975.