J. Farrell MacDonald

Joseph Farrell MacDonald was an American director and character actor. He has appeared in over 325 films as an actor from 1911-1951. He also directed 44 short films from the years 1912-1917.

Farrell was born in Waterbury in Connecticut, USA. He graduated in 1903 with a B.A. and LL.B from Yale University. He got his LL.D from Stewart Town University in Canada. He has also earned his graduate and mining certificates, and eventually joined a Government geological survey through Mexico and into the Rockies. He studied art in London and exhibited his skills in painting with 18 canvases at the LA galleries.

During his mid-thirties, he taught at the University of Southern California. He gave acting lessons there. He tied the knot with silent screen actress, Edith Bostwick (1882-1943), and together they had one daughter, Lorna. He has also spent time on a Baltimore newspapers as a police reporter. Farrell was the principal director of Oz Film Manufacturing Company.

At a very early stage in his vocation, Farrell was an artist in minstrel shows, and he toured the U.S. widely for a long time with stage preparations. In 1911, he shaped his first silent film, which was an emotional short named, The Scarlet Letter. Independent Moving Pictures Company produced the movie. He kept on acting in various movies every year from that time on, and by 1912, he was in the directing streak as well. The main film he coordinated was, The Worth of a Man. This was another sensational short for IMP. He contributed to 43 more movies until 1917. Over the Fence, in 1917, was a movie he co-directed with Harold Lloyd Harold was born in 1893 to Sarah E. Fraser and Jam >> Read More... . By 1918, Farrell, who was to wind up as a standout amongst the most adored character men in Hollywood, had surrendered direction and had given his full attention to acting, prevalently in Irish and Western comedies. He initially worked below the director, John Ford. In the 1919's he directed, A Fight for Love, along with three other films. Taking all things together, Ford would utilize Farrell for a quarter century, somewhere around 1919 to 1950. Amid the soundless time, he did remarkably in, 3 Bad Men (1926), The Iron Horse (1924), and Riley the Cop (1927). With a voice that coordinated his identity, Farrell made the move to sound movies effectively, with no detectable drop in his acting yield, which instead, went up. For instance, in 1931, Farrell showed up in 14 films, among which was the adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, in which he portrayed Detective Tom Polhaus, and also acted in 22 movies after that, in 1932. In spite of the fact that he played workers, detectives, ministers and military men, among numerous different characters, his parts were better than a "bit part": his characters, as a rule, had names, and his exhibitions brought credit to him regularly. A highlight of 1935, was his execution as the wanderer "Mr. Tramp" in the movie, Our Little Girl with Shirley Temple.

In the 1940s, Farrell was a piece of Preston Sturges' informal "stock organization" of the character performing artists, showing up in seven movies composed and coordinated by Sturges. The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels, Unfaithfully Yours, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, which was Sturges' last American movies, were all films in which he acted. His performance in Sturges' movies was, for the most part, uncredited, which was quite often the case as his profession went on. He was prominent in 1946, in John Ford's, My Darling Clementine, in which he played the role of Mac, the barkeep in the town canteen. Farrell additionally had an uncredited part in, It's a Wonderful Life, in which he played the proprietor of the tree, which George Bailey had harmed with his vehicle.

‘Elopement’, in 1951, was the film that he appeared in for the last time. Farrell's few TV appearances additionally happened in that same year. He died in 1952 at the age of 77, after a career spanning over 40 years, and Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles is where he is buried.