Jackie Kelk

Jackie Kelk, born John Daly Kelk on August 6, 1923, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actor and stand-up comedian who worked across stage, radio, film, and television. The son of Mr. and Mrs. Willy Kelk, he attended St. Gregory's Academy before enrolling at the Professional Children's School in New York. He died on September 5, 2002, of a lung infection at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 79, and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Kelk launched his career as a child actor in the early 1930s. His film debut came in the 1931 Warner Bros. short Play Ball, in which he played a character named Sam. The following year he was cast as Georgie Bassett, a snobby bow-tied boy, in the Penrod Vitaphone comedy shorts, a series based on books by Booth Tarkington and modeled on the format of the Our Gang shorts. At age ten he appeared in the 1934 drama Born to Be Bad.

His Broadway career spanned from 1931 to 1953 and encompassed a range of roles across more than a dozen productions. He made his Broadway debut as Young Jim Bailey in No More Frontier in 1931, followed by Peter Burroughs in Bridal Wise and Henri, the Son in The Perfect Marriage, both in 1932. That same year he played Mr. Clayton in Goodbye Again, a run that continued into 1933. He portrayed Prince Rudolph in Jubilee from 1935 to 1936 and "Chub" Tolliver in The County Chairman in 1936. Later stage credits included Terry in Terry and the Pirates in 1937, Percy in Flare Path from 1942 to 1943, Elliot Smollens in Tenting Tonight in 1947, and Herbie in Me and Juliet from 1953 to 1954.

Radio became a central part of Kelk's career. His network radio debut came on The Cohens, which starred Fanny Brice, and he subsequently played Chester in The Gumps and Oliver in the soap opera Valiant Lady. In the early 1940s he took on the role of Pete in the radio soap opera Mother of Mine, and in January 1946 he joined the cast of Celebrity Club on CBS. From 1940 to 1947 he voiced Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman, making him the original actor to portray the character in that medium. He is perhaps best remembered in radio for playing Homer Brown, the best friend of Henry Aldrich, on the teenage comedy series The Aldrich Family.

Kelk carried his Homer Brown role into television when The Aldrich Family was adapted for the small screen, appearing in that part from 1949 to 1950. In 1951 he starred in the title role of the NBC live sitcom Young Mr. Bobbin, which premiered on August 26, 1951, and was canceled after one season. He subsequently made guest appearances on Those Whiting Girls, The Lineup, Date with the Angels, and Leave It to Beaver, and took bit parts in the films Somebody Up There Likes Me in 1956 and The Pajama Game in 1957. From 1958 to 1959 he held a recurring role as obstetrician Dr. Bo Boland during the first season of the ABC sitcom The Donna Reed Show, which proved to be his final acting credit.