Background
Frank Morgan was born on 1 June 1890 in New York, New York, United States.
Frank Morgan was born on 1 June 1890 in New York, New York, United States.
Graduated from Cornell University.
It's a longer list than this, so marvel at the loyalty as well as the patience: with Gloria Swanson in Manhandled (24, Alan Dwan); Dangerous Nan McGrew (30, Malcolm St. Clair); Queen High (30, Fred New'mayer); Laughter (30, Harrv d’Abbadie d’Arrast); Fast and Loose (30, Newnnayer); Secrets of the French Police (32, Edward Sutherland); The Half-Naked Truth (32, Gregory La Cava); Hallelujah. I'm a Bum (33, Lewis Milestone); Reunion in Vienna (33, Sidney Franklin), his MGM debut; The Kiss Before the Mirror (33, James Whale); The Nuisance (33, Jack Comvay); When Ladies Meet (33, Harry Beaumont); Bombshell (33, Fleming); The Cat and the Fiddle (34, William K. Howard); The Affairs of Cellini (34, La Cava); The Good Fainj (35, William Wyler); Enchanted April (35, Beaumont); Naughty Marietta (35, W. S. Van Dyke); Escapade (35, Robert Z. Leonard); I Live My Life (35, Van Dyke); The Great Ziegfeld (36, Leonard); Trouble for Two (36, J. Walter Ruben); Piccadilly Jim (36, Leonard); father to Shirley Temple in Dimples (36, William A. Seiter); The Last of Mrs. Cheijney (37, Richard Boleslavsky); The Emperor’s Candlesticks (37, George Fitzmaurice); in Jean Harlow’s last film, Saratoga (37, Conway); Rosalie (37, Van Dyke).
He was an American in Germany in Paradise for Three (38, Edward Buzzell); Panisse in an adaptation of Pagnol, Port of Seven Seas (38, Whale); Robert Taylor's father in The Crowd Roars (38, Richard Thorpe); the producer in Sweethearts (38, Van Dyke); Broadway Serenade (39, Leonard); Balalaika (39, Reinhold Schiinzel); back from the dead in The Ghost Comes Home (40, William Thiele); Broadway Melody of 1940 (40, Norman Taurog); The Mortal Storm (40, Frank Borzage); Boom Town (40, Conway); pretending to be The Wild Man of Borneo (41, Robert B. Sinclair); very good in Honky Tonk (41, Conway); a real local hero in The Vanishing Virginian (42, Borzage); with a dog in Tortilla Flat (42, Fleming), for which he got a supporting actor nomination; White Cargo (42, Thorpe); The Human Comedy (43, Clarence Brown); Thousands Cheer (43, George Sidney); The White Cliffs of Dover (44, Brown); Casanova Brown (44, Sam Wood); Yolanda and the Thief (45, Vincente Minnelli); Courage of Lassie (46, Fred M. Wilcox); back from the dead again in The Cockeyed Miracle (46, S. Sylvan Simon); Lady Luck (46, Edwin L. Marin); Green Dolphin Street (47, Victor Saville); Summer Holiday (48, Rouben Mamoulian); the king in The Three Musketeers (48, Sidney); The Stratton Stony (49, Wood): The Great Sinner (49, Robert Siodmak); Kiny to the City (50, Sidney).
There are stories that Frank Morgan turned up for work day after day, year after year, on the MGM lot, bringing a small black briefcase containing the modest alcoholic refreshment that he required. Everyone loved him, he did whatever he was told, and as a rule managed it with finesse and invention. His only passing irritability arose when the black case went astray. He followed his brother Ralph (1883-1956) onto the stage and began working in films as early as 1916, at Vitagraph. But it was at Metro, invariably seeming more than his real age, that he established himself as a lovable fusspot, not nearly as competent as he would have liked—and it was that persona that graced Professor Marvel and the Wizard himself in The Wizard of Oz (39, Victor Fleming), the movie that ensures Morgan’s survival, just as The Shop Around the Comer (40. Ernst Lubitsch) and his Mr. Matuschek are proof of his greatness.