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Perkins, Osgood
Perkins, Osgood (1892–1937), actor. Born in West Newton, Massachusetts, he was educated at Harvard, fought in World War I, and worked in films before making his late debut in a small part in Beggar on Horseback (1924). For a time thereafter he drifted between larger roles in short‐run plays and supporting roles in minor hits, among them Joe Cobb in Spread Eagle (1927). Perkins's career‐making role was the cynical, gimlet‐eyed newspaper editor Walter Burns in The Front Page (1928). Twelve years after the play closed Brooks Atkinson wrote that he could still see Perkins “cutting through the uproar like a bright, sharp penknife, and peeling off the layers of the plot as he went along.” Subsequent successes came as Michael Astroff in Uncle Vanya (1930), the acid‐tongued secretary Samuel Gillespie in Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931), novelist Kenneth Bixby in Goodbye Again (1932), Sganarelle in The School for Husbands (1933), pilot Jake Lee in Ceiling Zero (1935), and the fortune‐hunting Kenneth Rice in End of Summer (1936).
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Cite this article
Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Perkins, Osgood." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Perkins, Osgood." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-PerkinsOsgood.html Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Perkins, Osgood." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-PerkinsOsgood.html |
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Perkins, (James Ridley) Osgood
Perkins, (James Ridley) Osgood (1892–1937), American actor, who, after seeing active service in the First World War, made his first appearance on the stage in Kaufman and Connelly's Beggar on Horseback (1924). His performance as Walter Burns, the archetypal cynical newspaper editor in Hecht and MacArthur's The Front Page (1928), confirmed his reputation as a skilled comic actor, noted for his thin, expressive face and mobile hands; but he was also a sympathetic Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in 1930. He played Sganarelle in Molière's The School for Husbands (1933), supported the Lunts in Noël Coward's Point Valaine (1935), and was in S. N. Behrman's End of Summer (1936). He was to have been the leading man in Rachel Crothers's Susan and God, but died of a heart attack soon after its first performance in Washington.
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Perkins, (James Ridley) Osgood." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Perkins, (James Ridley) Osgood." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-PerkinsJamesRidleyOsgood.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Perkins, (James Ridley) Osgood." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-PerkinsJamesRidleyOsgood.html |
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