Porter Hall
- Birthday
- Sep 19, 1888
Bio: After working his way through the University of Cincinnati, Porter Hall slaved away as a Pennsylvania steel worker, then turned to acting, spending nearly 20 years building a solid reputation as a touring Shakespearean actor. Hall was 43 when he made his first film, Secrets of a Secretary. Never entertaining thoughts of playing romantic leads, Hall was content to… More Bio: After working his way through the University of Cincinnati, Porter Hall slaved away as a Pennsylvania steel worker, then turned to acting, spending nearly 20 years building a solid reputation as a touring Shakespearean actor. Hall was 43 when he made his first film, Secrets of a Secretary. Never entertaining thoughts of playing romantic leads, Hall was content to parlay his weak chin and shifty eyes into dozens of roles calling for such unattractive character traits as cowardice, duplicity and plain old mean-spiritedness. Cast as a murder suspect in The Thin Man (1934), Hall's guilt was so transparent that it effectively ended the mystery even before it began. In DeMille's The Plainsman (1936), Hall played Jack McCall, the rattlesnake who shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back (his performance won Hall a Screen Actors Guild award). In the rollicking Murder He Says (1944), Hall portrays the whacked-out patriarch of a family of hillbilly murderers. And in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Hall is at his most odious as the neurosis-driven psychiatrist who endeavors to commit jolly old Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) to the booby hatch. Even with only one scene in Going My Way (1944), Hall manages to pack five reels' worth of venom into his role of a loudmouthed atheist. In real life, Hall was the exact opposite of his screen image: a loyal friend, a tireless charity worker, and a deacon at Hollywood's First Presbyterian Church. Porter Hall died at age 65 in 1953; his last film, released posthumously, was Return to Treasure Island (1954). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Most Popular
Filmography
-
The Petrified Forest (2005)
- Jason Maple
- 100%
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Pony Express (1953)
- Bridger
-
Carbine Williams (1952)
- Sam Markley
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The Half-Breed (1951)
- Kraemer
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Ace in the Hole (The Big Carnival) (1951)
- Jacob Q. Boot
- 86%
- See all 47 films
Porter Hall Videos
His Girl Friday
3 minutes 49 seconds
Double Indemnity
2 minutes 39 seconds
Going My Way
1 minutes 10 seconds
Sullivan's Travels
2 minutes 48 seconds
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
2 minutes 43 seconds
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