After his first real acting job he came home and told his father, "Gee, dad, I don't understand why you say you get tired all the time."Īfter that, it seemed that Alan Hale was destined to have acting in his blood. Two days later he was at work in "I Wanted Wings, " again for Wellman.
It was seven years before the really big and most life-orienting question - "Mother, how can I make some money fast?" - came up again. For not appearing in his first movie, Buddy received $6.50 a day. was then only 13 years old.) The 'part' called for him to jump off and on freight cars, and Wellman decided it was safer for his old friend's son to sit behind the camera. His father got him a part in a Wellman picture called: "Wild Boys of the Road" circa 1933. got into pictures for an eminently sensible reason - he needed a new bicycle. He was great." "Of course," says Hale, "I never met a man who didn't like dad." CB DeMille once said, " has a greater potential than his father." But it was more often said, "Kid, you can act, but your father, he was a great actor. He was never intimidated by his father - friend of Valentino, Flynn, John Ford, William Wellman - his father's reputation, nor the fact that he resembles him.
However, for his son (the Skipper) Alan Hale Jr., all 240-280 pounds of him, they are a million laughs and also a great way to make a living. His mother Greta Ahrbin was the Shirley Temple of Chicago in 1906, later a star of Biograph under the pseudo-name of Gretcher Hartman, and still later a vamp re-christened Sonia Markova and palmed off as a sultry Bolshevik/Russian import.įor Alan Hale Sr., pictures were everything - his love and his entire life. Griffith made his early reputation), from whence he graduated to Hollywood and a long procession of parts ranging from "A Doll's House" with Nazimova to Little John in the classic "Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn and he also did both the silent and talking versions. By 1914 he was the leading man at Biograph (where D.W. father, the late Alan Hale Sr., known in his later years as a "heavy," dated back to older movies to 1911 and the old Lubin company. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~įrom the Facebook Page "I Sell Kirbys and I am Happy" I pruned the overly long text here and there and did a bit of reformatting because most of the paragraphs in the original posting ran far too long and made it hard to wade through. I found the following blog from Augon a Facebook site called "I Sell Kirbys and I am Happy." Sure enough, Alan Hale was a Kirby salesman at one time, and apparently a very enthusiastic and successful salesman at that.
Well, that photo piqued my interest so I started googling. That's Sherwood Schwartz on the left, who created the show (along with "The Brady Bunch"), and that's Alan Hale (Jr.) on the right, who played the Skipper.Īnd look at what the Skipper is holding! It's interesting that the Kirby logo was blotted out, I imagine for the same reason the Electrolux logo & name were changed in favor of the "Davis 500."
There's a screen shot of that photo below. Well, an amazing photo popped up very briefly toward the end of the show. Last night I watched a YouTube documentary about "Gilligan's Island." Yeah, I know.