Slim Summerville

Biography

Date of Birth 10 July 1892, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Date of Death 6 January 1946, Laguna Beach, California, USA (stroke) Birth Name George Joseph Somerville Height 6' 2½" (1.89 m) Mini Biography Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1892, rustic-looking George "Slim" Summerville possessed one of those malleable mugs that made you laugh even before he opened his mouth. Young Slim ran away from home as a youth and lived a rather wanderlust life until a chance meeting with Mack Sennett through his comedian friend Edgar Kennedy changed everything. He broke into silent films at age nineteen as one of Sennett's pie-hurling Keystone Kops and became part of the stock company of players. Making an unbilled appearance in Keystone's first feature film Carlitos - O Inesquecível (1914), Summerville's gangly build and naive innocence, not to mention his potato-like nose, mournful mug, and slim, curling upper lip, helped set him apart -- so much so that Summerville eventually branched out into his own short vehicles. Much more comfortable in rumpled clothes and overalls than a suit and tie, he later learned the ropes of directing and in the 1920s helmed a string of short films for both Fox and Universal studios. He refocused on acting come the advent of sound and made a rather easy transition, standing out in a number of commercial films, both comedic and dramatic, including the mammoth war epic Nada de Novo no Front (1930), the landmark musical film King of Jazz (1930), Hecht-MacArthur's classic The Front Page (1931), the Shirley Temple vehicles Captain January (1936) and Sonho de Moça (1938), and John Ford's Tobacco Road (1941). In addition he scored in a series of short comedies opposite Zasu Pitts, and a slew of supports in Hoot Gibson westerns. Usually playing much older than he was, the sleepy-eyed, slow-drawling Summerville played his last role in The Hoodlum Saint (1946), before dying of a stroke on January 5, 1946, at the not-so-old age of 53. He left a strong enough legacy, however, to be remembered as one of the screen's more reliable comedians. He was survived by his wife Eleanor and son Elliot. Spouse Gertrude M. Roell (? - ?) Eleanor Brown (? - 6 January 1946) (his death) 1 child Trivia Memorable for a series of feature-length comedies in which he was paired with the fidgety Zasu Pitts. He built a home in Laguna Beach, CA, for getaways which became, for more than 30 years, a well-known restaurant called The Beach House.