Jack Cheatham

John Preston Cheatham was born on December 28, 1894, in Jackson, Mississippi. An American character actor, he built a career spanning from the 1920s through the late 1940s that encompassed two Broadway appearances and nearly 200 film roles, approximately 100 of which were features.

Cheatham began his acting career in the 1920s, making his Broadway appearances in 1928. That year he appeared in both Diamond Lil, the play written by and starring Mae West, and Straight Thru the Door. His transition to film came in 1931 with a featured role in Shanghaied Love, which starred Richard Cromwell, Noah Beery, and Sally Blane.

Over the following two decades, Cheatham accumulated credits in a number of prominent Hollywood productions. He appeared in The Whole Town's Talking (1935), starring Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur, and The Petrified Forest (1936), which featured Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart, and Bette Davis. That same year he appeared in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Cheatham later returned to work within Capra's orbit in Meet John Doe (1941), again featuring Cooper alongside Barbara Stanwyck. Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), starring Priscilla Lane and Robert Cummings, also included Cheatham in an uncredited role as a detective outside a movie theater. His later film appearances included The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), both starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. His final screen performance came in Michael Curtiz's Flamingo Road (1949), a melodrama starring Joan Crawford.

Cheatham was married to Ewell "Elaine" Malone. He died on March 30, 1971, in La Mirada, California, and was buried alongside his wife at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.