Career
In 1909, he expanded into song writing, with songs such as "The Phone Bell Rang" and "Meet Maine on the Boardwalk, Dearie". Orth"s first major screen cr was in Prairie Thunder, a Dick Foran western, in 1937. From then on, he was often cast as bartenders, pharmacists, and grocery clerks, and always distinctly Irish.
He had a recurring role in the Doctor Kildare series of films and also in the Nancy Drew series as the befuddled Officer Tweedy.
Among his better roles were the newspaper man Cary Grant telephones early in His Girl Friday, one of the quartet singing "Gary Owen" in They Died with Their Boots On (thereby giving Errol Flynn as General Custer the idea of associating the tune with the 7th Cavalry), and as the little man carrying the sign reading "The End Is Near" throughout Colonel Effingham"s Raid. However, Orth is probably best remembered for his portrayal of Inspector Faraday in the 1951-1953 television series Boston Blackie.
A short, plump, round-faced man, often smoking a cigar, Orth as Faraday wore his own dark-rimmed spectacles, though rarely in feature films. In 1959, Frank Orth retired from show business after throat surgery.
Orth lived for ten months without her and then died on Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), 1962.