Walter Catlett

Walter Leland Catlett (February 4, 1889 – November 14, 1960) was an American actor and comedian born in San Francisco, California. He built his reputation playing excitable, officious, and temperamental characters across vaudeville, stage, and film.

Catlett began performing in vaudeville, at one point teaming with Hobart Cavanaugh, and also spent time in opera before transitioning to acting. His stage debut came in 1906, and he made his first Broadway appearance in So Long Letty in 1916. He made an initial film appearance in 1912 but returned to the stage and did not work in films again until 1929. In 1918, he starred in, stage-managed, and rewrote a production titled Look Pleasant, an Oliver Morosco–Elmer Harris–Harry Plani project that played at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles. His performance in the musical Baby Bunting in London in 1922 drew laughter from King George V.

His Broadway career, which spanned 1916 to 1928, included the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917, the Jerome Kern musical Sally in its original 1920 production, and the Gershwins' Lady, Be Good in 1924, in which he introduced the song "Oh, Lady Be Good!" Additional Broadway credits include Follow the Girl, Dear Sir, Lucky, and Treasure Girl.

Catlett's film career gained momentum with the arrival of talking pictures, which allowed audiences to fully experience his comic abilities. He appeared in a number of two-reel comedies in the 1930s, some as a comedy duo with Eugene Pallette, primarily for RKO, with six produced for Columbia between 1934 and 1940. New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall wrote that Catlett "runs away with the acting laurels" in Big City Blues in 1932. He played John Barsad in the 1935 David O. Selznick production of A Tale of Two Cities, starring Ronald Colman. Among his most recognized film roles were the theatre manager tormented by James Cagney's character in Yankee Doodle Dandy, the constable who jails the entire cast and ends up imprisoned himself in Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby, and the drunken poet Morrow in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. He was also reported to have served as Katharine Hepburn's comedy coach during the filming of Bringing Up Baby. In 1940, he provided the uncredited voice of J. Worthington Foulfellow, the fox antagonist in Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio. In the 1950s his film appearances included Here Comes the Groom, Friendly Persuasion, and Beau James.

On February 8, 1960, Catlett was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, receiving a motion pictures star at 1713 Vine Street. He died of a stroke on November 14, 1960, in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 71, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.