Max Wagner

Also Known As: Maxwell Wagner

Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Max Wagner (November 28, 1901 – November 16, 1975) was a Mexican-born American film actor who specialized in playing small parts such as thugs, gangsters, sailors, henchmen, bodyguards, cab drivers and moving men, appearing more than 400 films in his career, most without receiving screen credit. Newspaper gossip columnists noted his rise from playing "Gangster #4", with no lines, and not carrying a gun, to "Gangster #2", with both lines and a gun. Wagner was one of five children, all boys, of William Wallace Wagner, a railroad conductor, and Edith Wagner, a writer who provided dispatches for the Christian Science Monitor during the Mexican Revolution. When he was 10 years old, his father was killed by rebels and the family moved to Salinas, California, where he met John Steinbeck, who became a lifelong friend. Steinback based the character of the boy in his novel The Red Pony on Wagner. Under the name "Max Baron", Wagner acted in many Spanish-language versions of English-language films, which studios made as a matter of course in the early days of sound films, He also served as a Spanish language coach for other actors, and appeared in many of the "Mexican Spitfire" films starring Lupe Vélez, where he also served to monitor Velez's Spanish ad-libs for profanity. Other series that Wagner appeared in include the Charlie Chan films, and Tom Mix serials, as well as others made by Mascot Pictures Corporation. In the 1940s, Wagner was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in six films written and directed by Sturges, beginning with The Palm Beach Story In 1940 during the filming of "The Mad Doctor", Wagner was credited for driving 50,000 miles as an on-screen taxi driver on the studio back lots of Hollywood. Since his appearance as a cab driver in Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935), producers often cast him as a wise-cracking or henchman taxi driver. "I was cast as a taxi driver about five years ago", Wagner told a reporter. "And I was typed." In 1952, Wagner began to appear on television, in episodes of such shows as The Cisco Kid, Zane Grey Theater and Perry Mason, playing much the same kind of parts he played in the movies. He was a regular cast member on the western television series Gunsmoke, making nearly 80 appearances between 1959 and 1973. He also appeared in many episodes of The Rifleman, Bonanza, Cimarron Strip, The Wild Wild West and Maverick, including a guest-starring role in the 1959 Rifleman episode "Blood Brother." He also had roles in the original Star Trek and The Twilight Zone series. He appeared in more than 200 television episodes between 1952 and 1974. Notable film roles for Wagner include a supporting role in the cult science fiction classic Invaders from Mars (1953), an actor playing a gangster in the film-within-a-film segment of Bullets or Ballots (1936), and the bull farm attendant in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bullfighters (1945). Late in his career, he appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He also occasionally composed music, such as the Mexican folk ballad "Pedro, Rudarte y Simon" in the Western film The Last Trail (1933). Wagner died of a heart attack in Hollywood in 1975.

Department: Acting

Place of Birth: Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico

Birthday: November 28, 1901

Deathday: November 16, 1975

Adult: No

Gender: Male

Popularity:

1.00%

Known For:

The Last of the Vargas
Invaders from Mars
Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
The Thrill Seekers
It Happens Every Spring
Name the Woman
Hell Bent for Love
Charlie Chan in Shanghai
Making Good
The Relay
Flashing Oars
Step Lively, Jeeves!
Born to Be Wild
The House Across the Bay
Shed No Tears
The Fighting Marines
Gunpoint
Support Your Local Gunfighter
I Died a Thousand Times
Donovan's Brain
Flaxy Martin
Young Frankenstein
Rosemary's Baby
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
The Great Race
Hang 'em High
Shenandoah
The Arkansas Traveler
Maid's Night Out
Alcatraz Island
God's Country and the Woman
Many Unhappy Returns
The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again
The Miracle Rider
Love on a Bet
The Crime Patrol
Illegal
Dr. Socrates
Pressure Point
Frenchie
Robbery Under Arms
Numbered Men
Radio Stars on Parade
Cock of the Air
Matri-Phony
True Grit
Arizona to Broadway
We Who Are About to Die
Gridiron Flash
Walking on Air
Blind Date
The Personality Kid
Cocoanut Grove
Going Wild
Two in Revolt
Tarnished Angel
Paddy O'Day
Border Cafe
Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen
Wings of the Navy
Fast and Loose
Mr. Moto in Danger Island
The Return of the Cisco Kid
Fifth Avenue Girl
The Gracie Allen Murder Case
The Girl from Mexico
The Red Pony
Professor Beware
Reno
The Roaring Twenties
Pier 23
The Day the Bookies Wept
Millionaire Playboy
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
The Grapes of Wrath
The Lost Weekend
East of Eden
Night Waitress
Wings Over Honolulu
The Great O'Malley
It's a Wonderful Life
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Adventures of Frank Merriwell
The Girl from Mandalay
Evil Roy Slade
I'll Tell the World
The Daring Young Man
Charlie Chan in Panama
Smart Blonde
Mexican Spitfire
The Truth About Murder
The Oil Raider
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Money to Loan
Trail of the Vigilantes
A Big Hand for the Little Lady
Ride on Vaquero
Buck Benny Rides Again
Overland to Deadwood
The World and the Flesh
Little Tough Guys in Society
That Brennan Girl
Fallen Angel
Love Begins at Twenty
The Great Diamond Robbery
The First Auto
Mary Burns, Fugitive
San Quentin
The Bank Dick
Hired Wife
They Drive by Night
Men Against the Sky
The Spirit of St. Louis
Lucky Partners
The Mad Doctor
The Ghost Breakers
Rhythm on the River
Wildcat Bus
Caught
Sons o' Guns
The Girl on the Front Page
The Sainted Sisters
Our Leading Citizen
Cafe Society
Cyclone on Horseback
Pop Always Pays
Boss of Boomtown
You Can't Fool Your Wife
Come on Danger
Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines
The Spoilers
Sabotage Squad
Chatterbox
Texas
The Good Bad Girl
The Wife Takes a Flyer
Renegades of the West
Rockabye
Suicide Fleet
The Mexican Spitfire's Baby
The House of a Thousand Candles
Obliging Young Lady
Stage Door
Mexican Spitfire's Elephant
Off the Record
Panama Hattie
Penrod and His Twin Brother
The Big Game
Circumstantial Evidence
Scouts to the Rescue
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
The Secret of Convict Lake
The Miracle of the Bells
Half Past Midnight
A Night to Remember
3 Kids and a Queen
Reign of Terror
A Medal for Benny
Bullets or Ballots
Black Legion
Moontide
You Only Live Once
Terror in the Wax Museum
The Palm Beach Story
Painted Desert
Dancing Pirate
The Racket
Flaming Feather
The Lost Jungle
The Lost Jungle
4 for Texas
Before Dawn
Tycoon
She Had to Choose
The Talk of the Town
Ice Palace
Return of the Gunfighter
The Legend of Lylah Clare