Guy Kibbee

Guy Bridges Kibbee (March 6, 1882 – May 24, 1956) was an American actor whose career spanned the stage and screen. Born in El Paso, Texas, he was the son of the editor of the El Paso Herald-Post newspaper, and learned to set type at the age of seven. At fourteen, he left home to join a traveling show, beginning an entertainment career that would take him from Mississippi riverboats to Broadway and Hollywood. His younger brother was actor Milton Kibbee.

Kibbee worked in traveling stock companies during his early years, initially performing as a romantic leading man despite beginning to lose his hair at nineteen. His Broadway debut came in 1930 in the play Torch Song, a production that drew significant attention in New York and caught the eye of Hollywood studios. He went on to appear in additional Broadway productions, including Marseilles and A Joy Forever, with his Broadway career extending through 1946.

The success of Torch Song led Paramount Pictures to sign Kibbee, prompting his move to California. He subsequently became part of the Warner Bros. stock company, a roster of contract actors deployed across a range of productions in supporting roles. His screen persona centered on daft and jovial characters, and he appeared in a number of prominent films during the 1930s, including 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Captain Blood (1935), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He also portrayed the expatriate inn owner in Joan Crawford's Rain (1932). Among his few leading roles was the title character in Babbitt (1934), a substantially condensed adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. He is further remembered for his portrayal of Mr. Webb, the newspaper editor and father of Emily Webb, in the film version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, with Martha Scott playing his daughter.

A 1935 Warner Bros. film, Mary Jane's Pa, gave rise to a culinary footnote: Kibbee prepared a dish consisting of an egg fried inside a hole cut from a slice of bread, and the preparation subsequently became known informally as "Guy Kibbee eggs," though the dish also circulates under names including "egg in a basket" and "Rocky Mountain Toast."

In his personal life, Kibbee was married twice. His first wife, Helen Shay, raised a family with him in Staten Island before their divorce. One of their sons, Robert Kibbee, later became chancellor of the City University of New York. His second wife was Ethel "Brownie" Reed, with whom he had a daughter, Shirley Ann; that marriage lasted thirty-one years.

Kibbee died of Parkinson's disease on May 24, 1956, at the Percy Williams Home for actors in East Islip, New York.