Frank Faylen

American character actor who specialized in average-guy parts and who could be equally effective in sympathetic or unlikeable roles. His parents, the vaudeville team of Ruf and Cusik, took him onstage with them when he was a baby, and Faylen grew up in the theatre. He attended St. Joseph's Preparatory College in Kirkwood, Missouri, but returned to vaudeville as a comic pantomimist. He toured the country throughout the late Twenties and early Thirties as a clown and later as song-and-dance man with acrobatic agility. During a tour stop in Los Angeles, he was screen tested and began a thirty-year career as one of Hollywood's most familiar character players. His most famous film roles were as the vicious male nurse Bim in _The Lost Weekend (1945)_ (qv) and as the cabdriver Ernie in _It's a Wonderful Life (1946)_ (qv). But his greatest fame came in television, particularly as Dobie's dad Herbert T. Gillis in _The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959)_ (qv). Faylen was married to actress 'Carol Hughes' (qv), with whom he had two daughters. He retired after _Funny Girl (1968)_ (qv), and died in 1985.::Jim Beaver <[email protected]>