J.M. Kerrigan

Acting · 0.6 popularity

Age

141

Movies

Born: December 16, 1884 – April 29, 1964
From: Dublin, Ireland

Biography

Joseph Michael Kerrigan (16 December 1884 – 29 April 1964), better known as J.M. Kerrigan, was an Irish character actor. Kerrigan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He worked as a newspaper reporter until 1907 when he joined the famous Abbey Players. There he became a stalwart, appearing in plays by Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge (for whom he played the role of Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World. His first screen appearance was in the silent film Food of Love in 1916. By the 1920s he was appearing on Broadway, often in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Sheridan. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935, having been recruited along with several other Abbey performers, to appear in John Ford's The Informer. In that film and in Ford's The Long Voyage Home, he plays similar roles, that of a leech who attaches himself to men until they run out of money. Perhaps his best known role was in The General Died at Dawn, where he plays a character actually named Leach, in which he steals scenes from Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll and William Frawley. In it he plays a sinister little petty thief who, holding a gun on Cooper, says, "I may be fat, but I'm agile." He had little screen time in films which he starred as minor roles, such as the "First Drayman" in Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor. One of his most recognizable minor roles was in Gone with the Wind (1939), in which he played John Gallegher, the seemly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labour in to "co-operation". He appeared in Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), the famous film version of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in a minor role at the beginning of the film. In 1946, he tried breaking into Broadway shows, playing the discombobulated leprechaun Jackeen J. O'Malley in the show "Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley", based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip. J. M. Kerrigan died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964, aged 79. Kerrigan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Blvd.

Works

94 films

Gone with the Wind

19397.9

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

19547.1

The Wolf Man

19417.0

Under Suspicion

19308.0

The Sea Hawk

19407.2

The Fastest Gun Alive

19566.9

Union Pacific

19396.7

Mr. Lucky

19437.0

Motor Madness

193710.0

The Long Voyage Home

19406.6

Tarzan and the Amazons

19456.3

Werewolf of London

19356.1

The Fighting Seabees

19446.2

Call Northside 777

19486.7

Action in the North Atlantic

19437.1

The Informer

19356.8

The Wild North

19526.9

Appointment for Love

19415.8

The Lost Patrol

19346.5

The Prisoner of Shark Island

19366.9

My Cousin Rachel

19526.7

Careless Lady

19325.8

The Spanish Main

19456.4

Two of a Kind

19516.8

The Luck of the Irish

19486.1

The Plough and the Stars

19365.7

Barbary Coast

19356.4

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

19355.9

Hot Tip

19357.0

The General Died at Dawn

19366.5

Young Tom Edison

19405.9

Lloyd's of London

19367.3

Wilson

19445.6

Undercover Agent

19394.2

The Vanishing Virginian

19427.3

The Black Camel

19316.1

Vacation from Love

193810.0

Abie's Irish Rose

19467.0

Air Hostess

19336.3

Park Row

19526.7

Laughing Irish Eyes

193610.0

Sabotage

19396.6

The Great John L.

19456.3

The Silver Whip

19536.4

Sealed Cargo

19516.5

A Modern Hero

19347.0

No Time for Comedy

19405.3

Ride a Crooked Mile

19387.0

The Crime Doctor's Warning

19456.5

One Crowded Night

19405.5

Lightnin'

19305.3

London by Night

19376.1

Spendthrift

19366.0

Captains of the Clouds

19426.4

Sorority House

19397.3

The Flying Irishman

19395.0

Colleen

19365.8

Congo Maisie

19404.4

The Kid From Texas

19397.0

The Key

19344.9

Two Thoroughbreds

19395.0

Vanessa: Her Love Story

19356.2

Little Orphan Annie

19388.0

Mrs. Mike

19496.0

A Study in Scarlet

19335.6

The Fountain

19348.9

She Went to the Races

19456.0

The Big Bonanza

19446.3

It's a Dog's Life

19554.3

Spring Madness

19384.9

Vanity Street

19327.1

The Witness Vanishes

19397.0

Curtain Call

19407.3

The Rainbow Trail

19329.0

The Great Man Votes

19396.4

Rockabye

19326.5

Let's Make a Million

19367.5

Little Old New York

19236.5

Untamed

19405.0

The Zero Hour

19395.3

A Feather in Her Hat

19357.0

The Fighting O'Flynn

19497.3

Two Bright Boys

193910.0

Black Beauty

19465.7

6,000 Enemies

19396.1

Special Investigator

19365.4

Timothy's Quest

19364.7

Merely Mary Ann

19319.0

New Movietone Follies of 1930

193010.0

Don't Bet on Women

19314.9

Lucky In Love

19297.0

Song o' My Heart

19304.8

Paddy the Next Best Thing

19333.0

Lone Cowboy

19334.0