Our Gang/Little Rascals (1922-1944)

Peggy Cartwright was born on 14 November 1912 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was an actress, known for A Lady of Quality (1924), Magic Night (1932) and The Third Generation (1920). She was married to Bill Walker and Phil Baker. She died on 13 June 2001 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Jack Davis was born on 5 April 1914 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Big Doll House (1971), Code Name: Apollo (1970) and The Master Liquidators (1969). He was married to Josephine. He died on 3 November 1992 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

Weston Doty was born on 18 February 1914 in Malta, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Peter Pan (1924) and One Terrible Day (1922). He died on 1 January 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Winston Doty was born on 18 February 1914 in Malta, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Peter Pan (1924), One Terrible Day (1922) and A Pleasant Journey (1923). He died on 1 January 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

George Ward was born on 27 November 1916 in New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Their Own Desire (1929), The March of Time (1930) and Good News (1930). He died on 3 January 1998 in Toms River, New Jersey, USA.

"Sunshine Sammy" Morrison was most famous as one of the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids, but he was probably the most experienced actor of that group. Morrison made his film debut while still an infant; his father worked for a wealthy Los Angeles family that had connections in the film industry, and one day a producer who was an acquaintance of his father's needed a baby for a scene and asked him to bring Sammy as a replacement for a child who wasn't working out. Morrison pulled off the job like a trouper, and his career was born. He appeared in films with such comedians as Harold Lloyd and, in fact, was paired with 'Snub' Pollard in a series of one-reel comedies in 1920. Producer Hal Roach gave Morrison his own comedy series in 1921, but only one was made. He was eventually cast by Roach as one of the original Our Gang kids. He left the series in 1924 for a turn in vaudeville, where he spent the next 16 years. When the East Side Kids films were being cast, producer Sam Katzman remembered Morrison from the days when Katzman was a theatrical producer and Morrison had worked for him, and hired him as a member of the gang. Morrison left the series when he was drafted into the army during World War II, and after he got out he was offered his old job back, but declined it. After a few more film roles, Morrison left show business entirely, took a job in an aircraft assembly plant and spent the next 30 years in the aircraft industry.

Child actor and bit player Monty O'Grady was born John Montgomery O'Grady on March 6, 1916 in Los Angeles, California. O'Grady began his film career in the silent movie era of the mid-1920s as a child actor who's probably best known as a member of the early Our Gang group. Upon reaching adulthood O'Grady went on to become an extremely prolific and ubiquitous extra who can be spotted in a slew of films and TV shows alike in often uncredited minors roles such as reporters, waiters, party guests, passengers on ocean liners, or patrons in bars, nightclubs, or restaurants. His career as an actor spanned seven decades altogether. O'Grady died at age 84 on March 8, 2000 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Elmo Billings was born on 24 June 1912 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was an actor and editor, known for Terry and the Pirates (1952), Fire Fighters (1922) and Locked Doors (1925). He died on 6 February 1964 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Mickey Daniels was born on 11 October 1914 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, USA. He was an actor, known for The Little Minister (1922), Roaring Roads (1935) and Uncle Tom's Uncle (1926). He died on 20 August 1970 in San Diego, California, USA.

Born in Idaho in 1915, perky blonde Mary Kornman's acting career began at age five. She made her "name" as the cute, spunky little girl in the 1920s' "Our Gang" shorts, and was often paired with Mickey Daniels. The two returned to the screen as a pair again several years after leaving the "Rascals" series with a new series of comedy shorts for Hal Roach called "The Boy Friends" (in 1932 she made a cameo appearance, along with Daniels, in a Little Rascals short, Fish Hooky (1933), as the gang's teacher!). The "Boy Friends" series lasted three years, and after that Mary struck out on her own, but couldn't manage much beyond "B" pictures. She left the business in 1940, and died in 1973.

Gabe Saienz was born on 26 March 1913 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Lodge Night (1923), The Sun Down Limited (1924) and The Champeen (1923). He died on 7 July 1989 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

John Michael Condon, known professionally as Jackie Condon, was born in Los Angeles, California. His acting career began in the silent film Jinx (1919) when he was a few months shy of two years old. He is most well-known for being one of the original cast members of the "Our Gang" short film series, as well as being the only member to appear in all sixty-six of the shorts during the Pathé silent era. After his final "Our Gang" appearance in the short Election Day (1929) at the age of eleven, he attempted to make a transition from silent pictures to talkies; however, he was unsuccessful. He continued trying to get back into acting well into his adult years, and in a 1953 interview on the program You Asked for It (1950), he stated that he was studying dramatics under the actress Florence Enright. Still, he never made it back onto the big screen, save for a few "Our Gang" reunions. As an adult he worked as either a file clerk or an accountant at Rockwell International, working alongside former "Our Gang" co-star Joe Cobb. He died of colon cancer on October 13, 1977 in Inglewood, California. He was 59 years old.

Allen 'Farina' Hoskins was born on 9 August 1920 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Reckless (1935), Love Business (1930) and Moan & Groan, Inc. (1929). He was married to Frances. He died on 26 July 1980 in Oakland, California, USA.

Starring in early "Our Gang" films, Samuel got his break in the movies by tagging along with his older brother who was an agent for Ramon Novarro. When he got too big and outgrew the other kids, he left the series and never returned to acting. For 20 years, Andy and his son operated an art and picture-framing shop in Beverly Hills, "H.A. Samuel & Son." Samuel died following a stroke.

Sonny Loy was born on 11 March 1915 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The First Born (1921), Mr. Wu (1927) and The Divine Woman (1928). He died on 8 January 1950 in California, USA.

Ivadell Carter was born on 7 January 1914 in Sedalia, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Evangeline (1919), Jubilo, Jr. (1924) and The Sun Down Limited (1924). She was married to Fahy Johnson and Wendell "Peter" Patten. She died on 2 April 2010 in Burbank, California, USA.

Billy Lord was born on 11 January 1915 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ridin' Streak (1925), The Love Trap (1923) and The Chinatown Mystery (1928). He died on 13 June 1983 in Kern County, California, USA.

Peggy Ahern was born on 9 March 1917 in Douglas, Arizona, USA. She was an actress, known for Not So Long Ago (1925), The Vanishing American (1925) and The Sun Down Limited (1924). She died on 24 October 2012 in Culver City, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Joe Cobb was born on 7 November 1916 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Uncle Tom's Uncle (1926), Good Cheer (1926) and The Buccaneers (1924). He died on 21 May 2002 in Santa Ana, California, USA.

Jannie Hoskins was born on 19 March 1923 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Good Cheer (1926), Halfback Buster (1928) and Uncle Tom's Uncle (1926). She died on 11 January 1996 in San Francisco, California, USA.

Eugene Jackson gained fame as Farina's older brother, Pineapple, in six of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedy shorts - The Mysterious Mystery! (1924), The Big Town (1925), Circus Fever (1925), Dog Days (1925), The Love Bug (1925), and Shootin' Injuns (1925). Besides films he sang and danced on the vaudeville circuit - billed as "Hollywood's most famous colored kid star". Most of his film roles were bit parts, most uncredited. He did appear as Diahann Carroll's Uncle Lou on TV's Julia (1968) and Redd Foxx's friend on Sanford and Son (1972). In later years he taught dance at studios he started in Compton and Pasadena. He trained several performers in the film Porgy and Bess (1959). His work was featured in a dance retrospective for the 1993 Los Angeles Festival.

Lassie Lou Ahern, who enjoyed a substantial career in 1920s Hollywood working with the likes of Will Rogers, Charley Chase, Helen Holmes, and the team of Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky, has passed away in Prescott, Arizona, USA, due to complications of the flu. After decades of relative obscurity, interest in her life and filmography won her a new audience of fans during her final years owing to a renewed cultural appreciation of silent cinema and to efforts made toward restoring her final silent film. Along with surviving star "Baby Peggy" (Diana Serra Cary), 99, Ahern was the last Hollywood performer with deep roots in motion pictures before the coming of sound. Brimming with stories, details, and information, her loss finds our relationship to silent cinema moving from living history to simply that of history.

She was born four blocks away from the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood. Her father, Fred Ahern, was a real estate agent who had Will Rogers as a leading client as Culver City was being formed. After meeting Lassie and her older sister Peggy, Rogers encouraged Ahern to take his daughters to Hal Roach studios to be cast in parts calling for children, and soon they earned ancillary roles in the Our Gang. Rogers took an active interest in Lassie, ensuring she had parts in his films. Throughout her life, with great fondness, she considered him her "real" father. She made her debut in Roach's first full-length movie, an adaptation of The Call of the Wild (1923), and soon was regularly cast in Charley Chase comedies and as the object of rescue in the popular serials of Helen Holmes. In pictures such as Webs of Steel (1925), Lassie, like Holmes, supplied her own dangerous stunt work. Meanwhile she appeared in productions by independent producers (The Dark Angel for Samuel Goldwyn, Hell's Highroad for Cecil B. DeMille, Robes of Sin for William Russell [all 1925]), as well as features at major studies (John Ford's now lost film Thank You and Excuse Me starring Norma Shearer [both 1925]), before landing a contract with Universal in the mid-1920s.

She found her biggest success in the epic Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927), in which she landed the part of Little Harry over hundreds of boys who auditioned for the role. Shot largely on location on the Mississippi River, she appeared in the legendary sequence featuring the escape across the ice floes. While the movie would be the object of a spate of bad fortune that led to its taking more than a year and a half to make, it was the highlight of her career and won her excellent notices. Of her acting, biographer Jeffrey Crouse, in an extended interview conducted with her in 2013 for Film International, has written that, "though by today's standards she fails to convince as a boy, she commits fully to the movie in such an animated, engaging way that she provides it with a color splash which sweetly enlivens the picture." It ended up becoming the third most expensive 1920s Hollywood production after Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Old Ironsides (1926), and like those other films it lost money at the box office.

At Universal she had her own dressing room (it had once been Conrad Nagel's) and star on the door. An entire clothing line was named after her ("Lassie Lou Classics"), and her name and image were used to endorse such brands as Sunkist oranges, Buster Brown shoes, and Jean Carol frocks. At the same time, she was cast in the rare Jewish-themed drama Surrender (1927) opposite Mary Philbin and, in his only American film, Ivan Mozhukhin. She also appeared as an Arab girl in The Forbidden Woman (1927) starring Jetta Goudal and Joseph Schildkraut. Schildkraut, who would later win an Oscar for playing Captain Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), announced at the wrap party that he was so impressed by her acting skills that he considered her his "favourite co-star." That year also saw her cast as the co-lead opposite rising child star Frankie Darro in the FBO production Little Mickey Grogan. It was her swan song to silent pictures, and alongside her part as Little Harry, her role as the street urchin Susan Dale was the one of which she was most proud.

The late 1920s saw a spate of proto-gangster films (Underworld [1927], Ladies of the Mob [1928], and Thunderbolt [1929]), and alarmed by the rising depiction of screen violence, Fred Ahern took his daughters out of pictures. Instead, he opened a dance studio, only blocks from MGM, called "Ahern's Allied Arts." There--besides dance styles such as ballet and tap--acrobatics, rope tricks, and music were taught. Ernest Belcher, Marge Champion's father, had been Lassie's dance instructor, and indeed she had been a trained dancer before the studio opened, amply showing off her skills in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Little Mickey Grogan. From 1932 to 1939, the sisters successfully toured the world together in a variety of venues, even appearing on screen (marvelous in 1937's Hollywood Party). Their act broke up when each sister decided to marry.

While Peggy permanently retired from performing, Lassie returned to Hollywood in 1941 with husband Johnny Brent, a former Dixieland drummer who was employed for years as a musician for studio orchestras. She danced in City of Lost Girls (1941) and in the early musicals Donald O'Connor made at Universal (1943's Top Man and Mister Big and 1945's Patrick the Great). She was effusive in her praise for O'Connor, openly regarding him as the finest performer she ever worked with. She was also nearly cast opposite Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943), and had a bit part with Joseph Cotten in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944). When she returned to the screen decades later, it was not on the big one but on television, in small parts in episodes of The Odd Couple; Love, American Style; and other popular series.

In middle age, she not only was a travel agent but for more than thirty years taught dance to generations of students at the Ashram Spa near San Diego, with Renee Zellweger and Cindy Crawford among her pupils. In the 1970s, while researching an upcoming role in which she was to be cast as a madam, Faye Dunaway approached Lassie for walking lessons because of her commanding posture.

Besides her late husband and sister, Lassie's half-brother Fred had also worked in the industry, notably as a production designer for Alfred Hitchcock in five pictures he made for the Master of Suspense from the period of Spellbound (1945) to Stage Fright (1950). Lassie leaves behind three children, Cary, Debra, and John. She told Crouse in 2013, "It's gratifying to experience such interest in my work from you and so many others from around the world. Fan letters, especially from Germany and Spain, still arrive at my mailbox at a rate that amazes me."

An original 35-mm nitrate copy of Little Mickey Grogan has been found in the Lobster Films Archive in Paris. Crouse and co-producer Eric Grayson are working to restore it.

Johnny Downs was born on 10 October 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Mad Monster (1942), Coronado (1935) and College Holiday (1936). He was married to June Ellen Draper. He died on 6 June 1994 in Coronado, California, USA.

Jay R. Smith was the second freckled-faced youngster to be featured in producer Hal Roach's successful film series, "Our Gang" (later known on television as "The Little Rascals".) His first "Our Gang" film was _Boys Will be Joys(1925)_ in a small role. Smith was put into the series as a sort-of replacement for Mickey Daniels, the original freckle-faced kid in the gang; Daniels was outgrowing his youthful role. While never a "star" in the Gang, Smith continued in the series for the next four years. He made his last Gang appearance in the early talkie _Moan & Groan, Inc.(1929)_ as a boy who gets a police officer trapped in Japanese handcuff toy. As an adult, Smith got into the retail paint business and attended movie conventions, offering his signature. On October 5, 2002, Smith's body was found 25 miles north of Las Vegas, Nevada, having died from multiple stab wounds. Charles "Wayne" Crombie, a homeless man who Smith had reportedly befriended, was later convicted of the murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

Clifton "Bobby" Young gained notoriety as a child actor playing "Bonedust" during Our Gang's sound transition period. Of all the graduates of Our Gang (with the exception of Jackie Cooper and, arguably, Dickie Moore), Clifton had the greatest shot at adult stardom - at least as far as strong character roles were concerned. With his Kirk Douglas cleft chin, Clifton was active in several top-drawer postwar pictures: Dark Passage (1947), especially memorable as a weaselly blackmailer who picks up escaped convict Humphrey Bogart, Pursued (1947), directed by Raoul Walsh, Possessed (1947), and Blood on the Moon (1948). He was also a semi-regular in Warner Bros.' popular "Joe McDoakes" comedy shorts and played a bad guy in two 'Roy Rogers' Republic oaters. Clifton hit a rough personal period in 1951 and had moved into a hotel after a painful divorce, where he died smoking in bed.