Jack Haley

John Joseph Haley Jr. was born on August 10, 1898, in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Canadian-born father who worked as a waiter and later a ship's steward. His father died in the wreck of the schooner Charles A. Briggs at Nahant, Massachusetts on February 1, 1898, before Jack was born. Haley had one older brother, William Anthony Haley, a musician who died of tuberculosis in 1916 at age 21. Raised Roman Catholic, Haley would later become a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.

Haley built his early career as a song-and-dance comedian in vaudeville, and counted Fred Allen among his closest friends. Allen regularly referenced him on air as "Mr. Jacob Haley of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts." In 1923, Haley recorded phonograph records, and in the early 1930s he appeared in comedy shorts for Vitaphone in Brooklyn, New York. His Broadway career spanned from 1924 to 1948, encompassing productions that included the revue Gay Paree in 1926, Take a Chance, Higher and Higher, Show Time, and Inside U.S.A.

His film work brought him supporting roles in a range of musical features. At Twentieth Century-Fox, where he was under contract, Haley appeared in Poor Little Rich Girl alongside Shirley Temple, Alexander's Ragtime Band featuring Irving Berlin's music, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Pigskin Parade, the last of which marked his first screen appearance with Judy Garland. He also appeared in Higher and Higher, which starred Frank Sinatra. Most of his film work in the 1940s was produced by RKO Radio Pictures, a relationship that ended in 1947 when he declined to appear in a remake of Seven Keys to Baldpate, a role that subsequently went to Phillip Terry.

From 1937 to 1939, Haley hosted a radio program that aired under different titles depending on its sponsor. During its first season, sponsored by Log Cabin Syrup, it was known as The Log Cabin Jamboree. The following season, sponsored by Wonder Bread, it became The Wonder Show, and featured Gale Gordon and Lucille Ball as regular performers.

Haley is perhaps most widely recognized for portraying the Tin Man and his Kansas farmhand counterpart Hickory in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. He was brought in as a replacement for Buddy Ebsen, who had suffered a severe allergic reaction after inhaling aluminum powder from his silver face makeup, which aggravated a congenital bronchial condition and left him struggling to breathe. To prevent a similar reaction for Haley, the aluminum was reformulated as a paste rather than a powder; even so, the paste caused an eye infection that kept Haley off the set for four shooting days, requiring surgical treatment to prevent permanent damage. Haley later recalled in an interview with Tom Snyder that many fans assumed filming had been an enjoyable experience, a characterization he flatly rejected. For the role, he adopted the same soft vocal tone he used when reading bedtime stories to his children. The Wizard of Oz was one of only three films Haley made for MGM, the others being Mr. Cinderella in 1936 and Pick a Star in 1937, a Hal Roach production distributed by the studio.

After leaving RKO in 1947, Haley moved into real estate and took guest roles in television series over the following decades. His autobiography, Heart of the Tin Man, was published posthumously in 2000. On June 1, 1979, Haley suffered a heart attack and died five days later, on June 6, 1979, at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 80. His funeral was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd, where his Oz costar Ray Bolger delivered the eulogy. Haley is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.