Jack Perrin

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BIRTHDAY

July 26, 1896

Three Rivers, MI

DIED

December 17, 1967

RECENT CREDITS

Sunrise at Campobello (FILM) Nov. 1, 1960

The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (FILM) Dec. 1, 1955

Them! (FILM) Apr. 1, 1954

I Walk Alone (FILM) Jan. 1, 1947

Duffy's Tavern (FILM) Sep. 28, 1945

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BIOGRAPHY

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Michigan-born Jack Perrin moved to California with his family in the early 1900s. Perrin launched his film career in 1914 as a bit player and extra, working his way up to leading roles by 1917. After serving on a submarine in WWI, he resumed his movie work, attaining stardom in the 1919 Universal serial Lion Man. Handsome and athletic, Perrin became a popular Western star in the 1920s. Throughout the silent era, he worked for most of the major Western units (Universal, Pathe, First National) and not a few of the minor ones (Rayart, Mascot). In 1929, he was starred in the first all-talkie B-Western, Overland Bound. Perrin spent the early '30s laboring away for such Poverty Row concerns as Aywon and Big Four, where, despite shabby production values and substandard sound recording, he and his "wonder horse" Starlight remained Saturday-matinee favorites. He also briefly co-starred with Ben Corbett in a series of three-reel Westerns, released under the blanket title Bud and Ben. After his final starring series for producer William Berke in 1936, Perrin settled into character roles, both large (Davy Crockett in the 1937 serial The Painted Stallion) and small (the prison guard who escorts James Cagney to the hot seat in 1938's Angels With Dirty Faces). In 1956, Jack Perrin, together with several other former B-Western favorites, rode alongside Col. Tim McCoy in the "Cavalry rescue" sequence in Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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