Harold George Bryant "Harry" Davenport (January 19, 1866 – August 9, 1949) was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in a number of roles in many famous films from the early 1900s to the late 1940s. His specialty was playing grandfathers, judges, doctors, and ministers. He is perhaps best known for playing Dr. Meade in
Gone With the Wind (1939).
Biography
Early life
Davenport was born in
New York City and grew up in
Philadelphia. He came from a long line of stage actors, where his father was the famed thespian
Edward Loomis Davenport and his mother, Fanny Vining, was an
English actress descendant of the renowned 18th-century Irish stage actor, Jack Johnson. His sister was actress
Fanny Davenport. He made his stage debut at the age of five in the play
Damon and Pythias.
Film career
He started his film career at the age of 48. His film debut came in 1914 with silent film
Too Many Husbands, in which he played a man trying to keep his love-struck nephew away from a young woman he had raised as his daughter. Later that same year, he starred in
Fogg's Millions co-starring
Rose Tapley. The film would go on to become the first in a series of silent comedy shorts. In addition, he also directed eleven silent features during the pre-
World War I era, including many of the films in the
Mr. and Mrs. Jarr series.
In 1913, he co-founded, along with actor Eddie Foy, the Actors Equity Association, an American labor union for actors. The original organization, known as The White Rats, was spearheaded by Davenport. After a nine month stretch, the actors' group united in defiance of the appalling treatment of actors by theater owners such as the Shubert family and David Belasco, among others, by refusing to appear on stage by striking. The actions of the association caused the closure of all the theaters on Broadway, the only exception being theaters owned by George M. Cohan's company.
Some of the most famous films that he appeared in are The Bride Came C.O.D., filmed on location in Death Valley, The Life of Emile Zola, You Can't Take it With You, Gone with the Wind, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Foreign Correspondent, Kings Row, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, and Meet Me in St. Louis.
Personal life
He married
Alice Davenport in 1893. They had one daughter,
Dorothy Davenport, who also became an actress. After divorcing Alice in 1896, he married actress
Phyllis Rankin, that same year. They had four children, all actors: Arthur Rankin (father of
Arthur Rankin, Jr., founder of the
Rankin/Bass animation studio), Ned Davenport, Ann Davenport, and Kate Davenport. The 10 August 1949
Canton Sunday Telegram obituary noted that the couple were together until her death, contrary to reports that he divorced her and re-married. Through his marriage to Phyllis, he was the brother-in-law of
Lionel Barrymore, who was married at the time to Phyllis' sister
Doris. Phyllis's father, McKee Rankin, had been the top actor at the Arch Street Theater, which was run by Lionel's grandmother and Sidney's mother,
Louisa Lane Drew. He was the grandfather of producer Dirk Wayne Summers,
Arthur Rankin Jr. and Wallace Reid Jr.
After Phyllis's death, Davenport moved to Los Angeles and lived with his now-grown children. He died of a heart attack at the age of 83.
Partial filmography
Three Men on a Horse (1936)
They Won't Forget (1937)
The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
First Lady (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
You Can't Take it With You (1938)
The Rage of Paris (1938)
Long Shot (1939)
Tail Spin (1939)
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
Juarez (1939)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940)
Too Many Husbands (1940)
All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Lucky Partners (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)
One Foot in Heaven (1941)
(1942)
Kings Row (1942)
Larceny, Inc. (1942)
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
We've Never Been Licked (1943)
Princess O'Rourke (1943)
Jack London (1943)
Kismet (1944)
The Impatient Years (1944)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Music for Millions (1944)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
The Enchanted Forest (1945)
Pardon My Past (1945)
Adventure (1945)
Courage of Lassie (1946)
Three Wise Fools (1946)
Lady Luck (1946)
A Boy and His Dog (1946 short)
The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
That Hagen Girl (1947)
That Lady in Ermine (1948)
Down to the Sea in Ships (1949)
Little Women (1949)
That Forsyte Woman (1949)
Tell It to the Judge (1949)
Riding High (1950)
References
External links
Obituary
"Harry Davenport Biography" by Hal Erickson, Allmovie
Category:1866 births
Category:1949 deaths
Category:American film actors
Category:American silent film actors
Category:American stage actors
Category:American actors of English descent
Category:American people of Irish descent
Category:American film directors
Category:Silent film directors
Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction
