Background

Joseph Carroll Naish was born on January 21, 1897 in New York City, New York, United States to Irish immigrants Patrick Naish and Catherine Moran. He had four sisters and two brothers. Although the family claimed aristocratic ancestors and registry in Burke's Peerage, the father worked as a street-car conductor and had the child baptized in the back room of a saloon.

Education

A feral child of city streets, Joseph was thrown out of one school after another for brawling. At age fourteen, he left school.

Career

As a youth, he discovered a talent for mimicry which served him all his life. At age fourteen, he began his theatrical career as a "song plugger" (one who visits nightclubs and booking agencies to introduce new tunes to leading singers) for Irving Berlin and others.

Naish never held a job for more than a few months at a time until the United States entered World War I, when he joined the navy and learned to fly planes in Pensacola, Florida. In and out of the brig on various discipline charges, he nonetheless was sent to Europe and flew two hundred hours in Sampson bombers out of Brest, France.

Discharged from the service in Paris at the end of the war, he drifted across Europe until 1925 working a series of odd jobs, learning to speak six different languages fluently. In 1926, he returned to the United States, landing in southern California aboard an oil tanker. He moved to Hollywood and began performing stunts and bit parts in movies.

His first big break came in 1932 when he was cast opposite Edward G. Robinson in The Hatchet Man as Loretta Young's father, an aging Chinese merchant. His move to Hollywood was followed by numerous screen roles in such films as Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935); Jungle Love (1938), starring Dorothy Lamour; Captain Blood (1935), which headlined Errol Flynn; and Beau Geste (1939).

Before his career ended, he appeared in approximately 250 movies playing Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, English gentlemen, Greeks, Hindus, American Indians, Asians, Arabs, Mexicans, and Jews--virtually every nationality save his own. He did not make a credible Irishman, and was never cast as one in his thirty years on the screen. He estimated that he made $2 million in his screen career, but spent it as quickly as he made it on gifts, bad investments, and the race track. Despite appearing in up to thirty films per year, Naish gained national recognition for his work in radio.

From 1948 to 1953, he played the title character in "Life with Luigi, " CBS's hit comedy about an Italian immigrant in Chicago. In 1952, CBS tried to re-create this success on television, but the series was both a critical and a commercial failure, and only lasted four months. In 1955, Naish used his facility with languages on the Broadway stage in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, which was comprised of two one-act plays. He played a German immigrant in the first and an Italian lawyer in the second, to critical acclaim.

He returned to television for several dramatic roles, including playing a gambler in "Key Largo" for NBC's "Alcoa Hour. " He also appeared in guest roles in numerous other series until he retired in 1963.

Naish was bedridden by emphysema for two years and died of a coronary occlusion in La Jolla, California, in 1973.

Achievements

• Naish received supporting-actor Academy Award nominations for his portrayal of an Italian prisoner in Sahara (1943). In 1944 he won Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor (1944). He also received two Oscar nominations as Best Supporting Actor, for "Sahara" (1943) and "A Medal for Benny" (1945).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Strange Confession (Inner Sanctum Mystery)
  • Gung Ho
  • Calling Dr. Death (Inner Sanctum Mystery)
  • Sitting Bull

Views

Quotations: "When the part of an Irishman comes along, nobody ever thinks of me. "

Personality

Swarthy, stocky, with dark hair and a thin "Latin" mustache, Naish lacked the qualities Hollywood directors associated with a leading man. However, his striking features and command of dialect made him uniquely suited to play ethnic character roles. Time called him "a one-man U. N. "

Connections

He met his future wife, Gladys Heaney, while working together on a road production of a Broadway hit, The Shanghai Gesture. They married on February 10, 1928, settled in New York City, and unlike many other show-business couples, remained married for the rest of their lives. They had one child.

Father:

Patrick Naish

streetcar conductor

Mother:

Catherine Moran

Spouse:

Gladys Heaney