Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn (July 27, 1916 – October 14, 1986) was an American character actor. His expressive face was his stock-in-trade; and though he rarely carried the lead role, he had prominent billing in most of his film and television roles.
Early life
Wynn was born on July 27, 1916, in New York City, the son of vaudeville comedian Ed Wynn and his wife, the former Hilda Keenan. He took his stage name from his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, one of the first Broadway actors to star in Hollywood. His father was Jewish and his mother was of Irish Catholic background. Ed Wynn encouraged his son to become an actor, and to join The Lambs Club, which he did in 1937.
Career
Theatre and radio
Wynn began his career as a stage actor. He appeared in several plays on Broadway, including Remember the Day (1935), Black Widow (1936), Hitch Your Wagon (1937), The Star Wagon (1938), One for the Money (1939), Two for the Show (1940), and The More the Merrier (1941).
Wynn starred in the radio show The Amazing Mr. Smith on Mutual Broadcasting System April 7 – June 30, 1941. He played the title role, "a carefree young man who runs into trouble galore and becomes an involuntary detective".
Film and television
Wynn appeared in hundreds of films and television series between 1934 and 1986. He was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player during the 1940s and 1950s. He had a brief role as a belligerent, unsympathetic drunk in the wartime romance The Clock (1945). Arguably his most dynamic performance was a small role in The Hucksters (1948) with Clark Gable. His early postwar credits include The Three Musketeers (1948), playing D'Artagnan's servant; Annie Get Your Gun (1950); Royal Wedding (1951); Kiss Me, Kate (1953); The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); The Absent-Minded Professor (1961); The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Dr. Strangelove (1964).
The Wynns, father and son, both appeared in the original 1956 Playhouse 90 television production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight. The son was returning the favor: according to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, Keenan had helped his father overcome professional collapse, a harrowing divorce, and a nervous breakdown to return to work a decade earlier, and now helped convince Serling and producer Martin Manulis that the elder Wynn should play the wistful trainer. Both he and his father also appeared in a subsequent TV drama called The Man in the Funny Suit (1960), which detailed the problems they had experienced while working on that series. In it, the Wynns, Serling, and many of the cast and crew played themselves. Keenan also featured in another Rod Serling production, a Twilight Zone episode entitled, "A World of His Own" (1960) as playwright Gregory West, who uniquely caused series creator Rod Serling to disappear.
On January 18, 1959, Wynn starred in S. J. Perelman's Hollywood satire, "Malice in Wonderland", broadcast on NBC's prestigious Sunday afternoon anthology series Omnibus.
Wynn took a dramatic turn as Yost in the crime drama Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin. He had a leading role in the third Beach Party movie, Bikini Beach (1964) as a scheming newspaper publisher who wants to banish the local young people. Later he played Hezakiah in the comedy film The Great Race (1965). He was the voice of the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) and appeared in several Disney films, including Snowball Express (1972), Herbie Rides Again (1974) and The Shaggy D.A. (1976) (as a villain who learns Wilbur Daniels's secret and uses it against him). He appeared as villainous businessman Alonzo Hawk in three Disney films – The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, and Herbie Rides Again.
He appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's musical Finian's Rainbow (1968), Sergio Leone's epic western Once Upon a Time in the West (also 1968), and Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). During this time, his guest television roles included Alias Smith and Jones (1971–1972), Emergency! (1975), Movin' On (1975) and The Bionic Woman (1978). Wynn appeared in ten episodes of TV's Dallas during the 1979–1980 season, playing the role of former Ewing family partner-turned-enemy Digger Barnes. David Wayne, a friend of Wynn's, had played Digger Barnes in 1978 but was unable to continue with the role because of his co-starring role on the CBS series, House Calls, starring Wayne Rogers.