Jack Norton

Jack Norton, born Mortimer John Naughton on September 2, 1882, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American stage and film character actor whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway, and more than 180 film appearances between 1934 and 1948. He died on October 15, 1958, in Saranac Lake, New York, at the age of 76, and is buried in Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton, New York.

Before reaching Broadway or film, Norton built his early career in vaudeville, performing a comedy act alongside his wife, Lillian Healy, and later touring as part of a comedy team with boxer "Gentleman Jim" Corbett. His Broadway debut came in 1925 with that year's edition of Earl Carroll's Vanities, and he also appeared on Broadway in Florida Girl, a musical produced and staged by Carroll.

Norton's entry into film came in 1934 with the musical short School for Romance, which featured a young Betty Grable, though his scenes were ultimately cut. His work first reached the screen in the comedy short The Super Snooper, and his third film, the full-length feature Finishing School — which starred Frances Dee, Billie Burke, Ginger Rogers, and Bruce Cabot — saw him cast as a drunk, a characterization that would define much of his screen career. To refine these performances, Norton studied the behavior of genuine drunks, observing them directly to inform his portrayals. Notably, he was a teetotaler in his private life.

Though he also played sober characters, Norton became best known for his inebriated roles, working at a prolific pace and sometimes appearing in as many as 20 films in a single year, with many of those performances going uncredited. Among his most recognized work is his portrayal of A. Pismo Clam, a drunken film director whom W.C. Fields is hired to replace, in The Bank Dick (1940). During the 1940s he became a recurring presence in the films of writer-director Preston Sturges, appearing in five pictures as part of Sturges's informal company of character actors. One of the rare occasions on which he received prominent billing was the 1945 film A Guy, a Gal and a Pal.

Norton retired from film in 1947 due to illness, with his final screen appearance arriving posthumously in Alias a Gentlemen, released in 1948. He made some live television appearances in the early 1950s. A planned appearance in the 1956 Honeymooners episode "Unconventional Behavior" was ultimately prevented by his illness, and he was written out of the production during filming, though Jackie Gleason arranged for Norton to receive his full payment regardless.