J.M. Kerrigan

Also Known As: Joseph M. Kerrigan, J. M. Kerrigan

Biography: Joseph Michael Kerrigan (16 December 1884 – 29 April 1964), better known as J.M. Kerrigan, was an Irish character actor. Kerrigan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He worked as a newspaper reporter until 1907 when he joined the famous Abbey Players. There he became a stalwart, appearing in plays by Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge (for whom he played the role of Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World. His first screen appearance was in the silent film Food of Love in 1916. By the 1920s he was appearing on Broadway, often in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Sheridan. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935, having been recruited along with several other Abbey performers, to appear in John Ford's The Informer. In that film and in Ford's The Long Voyage Home, he plays similar roles, that of a leech who attaches himself to men until they run out of money. Perhaps his best known role was in The General Died at Dawn, where he plays a character actually named Leach, in which he steals scenes from Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll and William Frawley. In it he plays a sinister little petty thief who, holding a gun on Cooper, says, "I may be fat, but I'm agile." He had little screen time in films which he starred as minor roles, such as the "First Drayman" in Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor. One of his most recognizable minor roles was in Gone with the Wind (1939), in which he played John Gallegher, the seemly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labour in to "co-operation". He appeared in Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), the famous film version of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in a minor role at the beginning of the film. In 1946, he tried breaking into Broadway shows, playing the discombobulated leprechaun Jackeen J. O'Malley in the show "Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley", based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip. J. M. Kerrigan died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964, aged 79. Kerrigan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Blvd.

Department: Acting

Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland

Birthday: December 16, 1884

Deathday: April 29, 1964

Adult: No

Gender: Male

Popularity:

1.00%

Known For:

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Gone with the Wind
Call Northside 777
The Fighting Seabees
Park Row
The Fastest Gun Alive
Captains of the Clouds
Werewolf of London
The Wolf Man
The Informer
The Black Camel
A Study in Scarlet
The Lost Patrol
Congo Maisie
Air Hostess
Lloyd's of London
The Key
The Witness Vanishes
Lone Cowboy
The Prisoner of Shark Island
The Spanish Main
Colleen
The Big Bonanza
One Crowded Night
The Silver Whip
Paddy the Next Best Thing
Timothy's Quest
It's a Dog's Life
My Cousin Rachel
The Wild North
Mrs. Mike
The Fighting O'Flynn
The Luck of the Irish
Abie's Irish Rose
Black Beauty
She Went to the Races
The Crime Doctor's Warning
The Great John L.
Appointment for Love
The Long Voyage Home
Untamed
No Time for Comedy
The Sea Hawk
Young Tom Edison
Two Thoroughbreds
6,000 Enemies
The Zero Hour
Union Pacific
Sorority House
Undercover Agent
The Kid From Texas
The Flying Irishman
The Great Man Votes
Spring Madness
Ride a Crooked Mile
London by Night
The Plough and the Stars
Spendthrift
Special Investigator
A Feather in Her Hat
Barbary Coast
Hot Tip
Vanessa: Her Love Story
The Fountain
A Modern Hero
Rockabye
Vanity Street
Careless Lady
Don't Bet on Women
Lightnin'
Little Old New York
Sabotage
Curtain Call
Sealed Cargo
Song o' My Heart
Lucky In Love
Little Orphan Annie
Tarzan and the Amazons
The General Died at Dawn
The Vanishing Virginian
New Movietone Follies of 1930
Wilson
Action in the North Atlantic
Mr. Lucky
Laughing Irish Eyes
The Rainbow Trail
Merely Mary Ann
Let's Make a Million
Two Bright Boys
Vacation from Love
Under Suspicion
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Two of a Kind