Russell Gleason

Russell Gleason (February 6, 1908 – December 25, 1945) was an American stage and screen actor born in Portland, Oregon, to actors Lucile (née Webster) and James Gleason, who were performing in local theater productions at the time of his birth. He spent much of his childhood living with his maternal grandmother in Oakland, California, seeing his parents infrequently during the school year but joining them for stock theater work during summers. His stage debut came in infancy, when his grandmother carried him on to appear alongside his mother in The Heir to the Hooray.

Gleason entered film at age twenty-one with a leading role in the 1929 picture The Shady Lady, directed by Edward H. Griffith. The following year he earned critical recognition playing Private Mueller in All Quiet on the Western Front, the Oscar-winning adaptation that became one of the defining films of the early sound era. Over a career spanning roughly fifteen years, he appeared in more than fifty feature films, predominantly in featured or starring capacities. He acted alongside both of his parents in seven of the nine films comprising The Higgins Family series, produced between 1938 and 1941, with the family's participation concluding at Grandpa Goes to Town in 1940. He also appeared in 20th Century Fox's The Jones Family series. His final completed film was The Adventures of Mark Twain, which wrapped production in September 1942, though four of his pictures were released in 1944 after he had already entered military service.

In 1933, Gleason performed at Harold Lloyd's Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals, a showcase with notable Hollywood connections. The following year he appeared on Broadway in the 1934 play The Sky's the Limit, marking his credited stage work in New York.

In his personal life, Gleason married Cynthia Hobart, a stunt woman and swimmer who later authored a biography of Boris Karloff and co-wrote George Burns' autobiography. The Gleason family maintained a close friendship with Karloff, and Russell and Cynthia served as godparents to Karloff's daughter, Sara Jane. The couple had a son, Michael, born June 1, 1939, who later became a television producer.

Gleason enlisted in the U.S. Army in late 1943 during World War II. On December 25, 1945, while stationed in New York City with his regiment and awaiting deployment to Europe, he fell from a fourth-floor window of the Hotel Sutton on East 56th Street in Manhattan, a building the Army had commandeered to house troops. Authorities were unable to determine whether the fall was accidental or a suicide. Some publications, including Variety, reported that Gleason had been prescribed a sulfonamide for a cold and that the medication had caused grogginess that may have contributed to an accidental fall. He was interred at Long Island National Cemetery on December 28, 1945.