Walter Pidgeon

Walter Pidgeon, a handsome, tall and dark-haired man, began his career studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He then did theater, mainly stage musicals. He went to Hollywood in the early 1920s, where he made silent films, including Mannequin (1926) and Sumuru (1927). When talkies arrived, Pidgeon made some musicals, but he never received top billing or recognition in these.

His daughter, Edna Pidgeon Atkins, was born in 1924, and she once worked at the Animation Department of MGM before marrying in 1947. She gave Walter two granddaughters, Pat and Pam.

His first wife Edna died in 1926 while giving birth to their daughter, whom Mr. Pidgeon also named Edna. His widowed mother Hannah moved out to California to help care for his daughter. She lived there for the next 38 years, dying at the age of 94.

Starred in Universal's first all-talkie, "Melody of Love," in 1928.

Turned down the role of Gaylord Ravenal in the Universal remake of Show Boat (1936) because he did not want to be typecast in musicals. Allan Jones played the role instead opposite Irene Dunne's Magnolia.

In 1937 MGM put him under contract, but only in supporting roles and "the other man" roles, such as in Saratoga (1937) opposite Jean Harlow and Clark Gable and in The Girl of the Golden West (1938) opposite Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Although these two films were big successes, Pidgeon was overlooked for his contributions to them.

MGM lent him out to Fox, where he finally had top billing, in How Green Was My Valley (1941). When he returned to MGM the studio tried to give him bigger roles, and he was cast opposite his frequent co-star Greer Garson.

However, Garson seemed to come up on top in Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Mrs.

Miniver (1942), although Pidgeon did receive an Academy Award nomination for his role in the latter film.

(1952-1957) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Pidgeon remained with MGM through the mid-'50s, making films like Dream Wife (1953) and Hit the Deck (1955) with Jane Powell and old pal Gene Raymond.

According to the producer of Salt of the Earth (1954), Paul Jarrico, who had been blacklisted during the "Red Scare" of the mid-1950s, Pidgeon tried to stop the production of this motion picture (which was being made by blacklistees) in his capacity as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, which had approved of the blacklisting. In an interview in 1997, Jarrico said, "There was a concerted effort to stop the making of the film after it became known that we were making the film. We had started the film in quite a normal fashion with contracts with Pathe Lab to develop our film and rental of the equipment from Hollywood, people who supplied such things. A whistle was blown by Walter Pidgeon, the then president of the Actors Guild, and the FBI swung into action and movie industries swung into action and we found ourselves barred from laboratories, barred from sound studios, barred from any of the normal facilities available to filmmakers, and we found ourselves hounded by all kinds of denunciations on the floor of Congress and by columnists. The public was told that we were making a new weapon for Russia, that since we were shooting in New Mexico, where you find atom bombs, you find Communists, and every kind of scurrilous attack--vigilante attacks--on us while we were still shooting developed".

In 1956 Pidgeon left the movies to do some work in the theater, but he returned to film in 1961.

Was nominated for Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for "Take Me Along" -- a award that was won by his co-star Jackie Gleason.

Was the last of the four stars (including Bette Davis, Michael Rennie, and Hugh O'Brian) who played a "substitute attorney" on the Perry Mason TV series in 1963 when the star of the program, Raymond Burr was recovering from an operation to remove intestinal polyps. The pressures of performing that guest role convinced him that starring in any TV series was not to his liking.

Died one week after Richard Basehart, and from the same medical malady - stroke. Basehart famously played Admiral Harriman Nelson in Irwin Allen's television series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), the role that Pidgeon had originated in Allen's 1961 movie of the same name, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Pidgeon retired from acting in 1977.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 640-642. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

Walter Pidgeon, Raymond Massey and Ryan Gosling are the only three Canadians to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar (as of 2014).

Pidgeon ran off to join his brother, Don, in the Canadian Army, but his young age (16) was discovered and he was sent back home. He eventually enlisted in the 65th Battery of the Royal Canadian Artillery during World War I, but he was injured during his training when he was crushed by two gun carriages at Camp Petawawa and also caught pneumonia. As a result of these, he spent 17 months recovering at an army hospital in Toronto, having never been sent overseas.