Leon Janney
Encyclopedia
Leon Janney was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor and radio personality between 1920 to 1980.

Career

Born Leon Ramon in Ogden, Utah
Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...

, Janney made his first theatrical appearance at age two before an audience at the Pantages Theatre in his hometown. He spent the next several years in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

, and also made his first appearance on radio in 1926, making the leap to legitimate theater soon after.

Janney's movie debut came with Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström was a Swedish actor, screenwriter, and film director.- Biography:Born in Silbodal, in the Värmland region of Sweden, he was only a year old when his father, Olof Adolf Sjöström, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old in 1886...

's The Wind
The Wind
The Wind is a 1928 American dramatic silent film directed by Victor Sjöström. The movie was adapted by Frances Marion from the novel The Wind written by Dorothy Scarborough. It features Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Montagu Love, Dorothy Cumming, and others...

starring Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

. He soon began appearing in a string of movies portraying the boyhood incarnations of such actors as Ricardo Cortez
Ricardo Cortez
Jacob Krantz , known by his stage name Ricardo Cortez, was an American film actor who began his career during the silent era.-Life and career:...

, Reginald Denny
Reginald Denny (actor)
Reginald Denny was an English stage, film, and television actor. He was once an amateur boxing champion of Great Britain.-Acting career:...

, and Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

. Producer Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

 took notice of Janney and hired him to appear in the Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...

comedy Bear Shooters
Bear Shooters
Bear Shooters is a 1930 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan. It was the 98th Our Gang short that was released.-Plot:Spud wants to go camping and shoot lots of bears with Jackie, Chubby, and Farina...

as "Spud". However, Roach realized that he was too old to gel with the other members of the gang, and Bear Shooters marked his only appearance as a Little Rascal. In 1931 Janney starred in the second film adaptation of Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams...

's Penrod and Sam
Penrod and Sam
Penrod and Sam is a 1937 comedy/drama film directed by William C. McGann. It was the third screen version of American writer Booth Tarkington's novel Penrod and Sam.-Plot:...

.

By the mid-1930s, Janney was considered the quintessential male juvenile star. As he entered his teenage years, he turned to radio and worked on the series The Parker Family, playing all-American boy Richard Parker. Though he preferred theater work, his radio work allowed him to become a master dialectician. After serving in World War II as a translator, he continued working in radio and theatre. Though blacklisted in the 1950s, Janney continued to work regularly due to his preference for theatrical work, appearing in such plays as The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...

and The Gazebo
The Gazebo
The Gazebo is a 1959 black comedy film about a married couple who are being blackmailed. It was based on the play of the same name by Alec Coppel.Helen Rose was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.-Plot:...

.

By the 1960s, Janney appeared in bit roles on such television shows as Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You?
Car 54, Where Are You? is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from 1961 to 1963. Episodes had various directors, the most recognized being Al De Caprio. Stanley Prager and Nat Hiken also directed several episodes. Most of its filming was on location in The Bronx, and at Biograph...

, The Defenders and The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show
The Jackie Gleason Show is the name of a series of popular American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970.-Cavalcade of Stars:...

. He also made his first film appearance in more than a decade, playing a sympathetic guard in The Last Mile. Janney was also the spokesman for the New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...

 in their Rheingold Beer
Rheingold Beer
Rheingold Beer, introduced in 1883, is a New York beer that held 35 percent of the state's beer market from 1950 to 1960. The company was sold by the founding Liebmann family in 1963...

 commercials for the team's first two seasons (1962-1963). In his final years, he was a regular the television shows Another World
Another World (TV series)
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It ran for a total of 35 years. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J...

and The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night is an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984...

.

External links

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