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

Under Suspicion

Mr. Lucky

Appointment for Love

Air Hostess

Careless Lady

The Wolf Man

Hot Tip

The Fastest Gun Alive

Undercover Agent

The Wild North

The Lost Patrol

The Fighting Seabees

Vacation from Love

The Prisoner of Shark Island

Motor Madness

My Cousin Rachel

Tarzan and the Amazons

Union Pacific

Call Northside 777

Abie's Irish Rose

The Long Voyage Home

Sealed Cargo

The Luck of the Irish

Werewolf of London

Barbary Coast

Lloyd's of London

Two of a Kind

The Informer

The Sea Hawk

The Spanish Main

Wilson

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

No Time for Comedy

Ride a Crooked Mile

The Great John L.

A Modern Hero

The Big Bonanza

The General Died at Dawn

Special Investigator

Young Tom Edison

The Plough and the Stars

Action in the North Atlantic

Rockabye

The Flying Irishman

A Study in Scarlet

The Vanishing Virginian

It's a Dog's Life

Captains of the Clouds

The Crime Doctor's Warning

Mrs. Mike

London by Night

She Went to the Races

Congo Maisie

Park Row

Lone Cowboy

Lightnin'

The Great Man Votes

Merely Mary Ann

The Witness Vanishes

Colleen

The Silver Whip

The Fountain

The Rainbow Trail

The Black Camel

Black Beauty

The Kid From Texas

A Feather in Her Hat

Two Thoroughbreds

One Crowded Night

Vanessa: Her Love Story

Spring Madness

Untamed

The Key

Sorority House

Curtain Call