Cast

J.M. Kerrigan

Acting

Cast

J.M. Kerrigan

Known for

Acting

Born

1884-12-16

From

Dublin, Ireland

Died

1964-04-29

Also known as Joseph M. Kerrigan, J. M. Kerrigan

Biography

Joseph Michael Kerrigan (16 December 1884 – 29 April 1964), better known as J.M. Kerrigan, was an Irish character actor. Kerrigan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He worked as a newspaper reporter until 1907 when he joined the famous Abbey Players. There he became a stalwart, appearing in plays by Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge (for whom he played the role of Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World. His first screen appearance was in the silent film Food of Love in 1916. By the 1920s he was appearing on Broadway, often in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Sheridan. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935, having been recruited along with several other Abbey performers, to appear in John Ford's The Informer. In that film and in Ford's The Long Voyage Home, he plays similar roles, that of a leech who attaches himself to men until they run out of money. Perhaps his best known role was in The General Died at Dawn, where he plays a character actually named Leach, in which he steals scenes from Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll and William Frawley. In it he plays a sinister little petty thief who, holding a gun on Cooper, says, "I may be fat, but I'm agile." He had little screen time in films which he starred as minor roles, such as the "First Drayman" in Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor. One of his most recognizable minor roles was in Gone with the Wind (1939), in which he played John Gallegher, the seemly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labour in to "co-operation". He appeared in Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), the famous film version of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in a minor role at the beginning of the film. In 1946, he tried breaking into Broadway shows, playing the discombobulated leprechaun Jackeen J. O'Malley in the show "Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley", based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip. J. M. Kerrigan died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964, aged 79. Kerrigan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Blvd.

J.M. Kerrigan

J.M. Kerrigan

Biography

Gone with the Wind

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The Wolf Man

Under Suspicion

Motor Madness

The Fastest Gun Alive

Action in the North Atlantic

Mr. Lucky

The Lost Patrol

Air Hostess

The Sea Hawk

Undercover Agent

Werewolf of London

The Prisoner of Shark Island

The Long Voyage Home

The Informer

Union Pacific

Careless Lady

Call Northside 777

Appointment for Love

The Fighting Seabees

The Luck of the Irish

Tarzan and the Amazons

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Spanish Main

Two of a Kind

My Cousin Rachel

Young Tom Edison

The Wild North

Vacation from Love

Hot Tip

A Modern Hero

The Fountain

The General Died at Dawn

Captains of the Clouds

London by Night

Lloyd's of London

No Time for Comedy

Barbary Coast

A Study in Scarlet

The Crime Doctor's Warning

Abie's Irish Rose

The Black Camel

Special Investigator

The Flying Irishman

The Plough and the Stars

Wilson

The Key

The Vanishing Virginian

Park Row

It's a Dog's Life

A Feather in Her Hat

The Great John L.

The Big Bonanza

Ride a Crooked Mile

She Went to the Races

Sabotage

Rockabye

Congo Maisie

Colleen

The Great Man Votes

Lone Cowboy

The Kid From Texas

The Silver Whip

Vanessa: Her Love Story

Sealed Cargo

Spring Madness

Song o' My Heart

Sorority House

Black Beauty

The Fighting O'Flynn

Mrs. Mike

Untamed

6,000 Enemies

Curtain Call

Let's Make a Million

The Rainbow Trail