J.M. Kerrigan
Known For: Acting
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: December 16, 1884
Day of Death: April 29, 1964 (79 years old)
Place of Birth: Dublin, Ireland
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.
1956
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1939
Actor Johnny Gallagher
Gone with the Wind
Actor Flinters
The Witness Vanishes
Actor Jack Lenihan
Two Thoroughbreds
Actor Dan Barrett
6,000 Enemies
Actor Timothy
The Zero Hour
Actor Monahan
Union Pacific
Actor Lew Fisher
Sorority House
Actor Tom 'Pop' Madison
Undercover Agent
Actor Farr
The Kid From Texas
Actor Mr. Clyde Corrigan Sr.
The Flying Irishman
Actor Hot Shot Gillings
The Great Man Votes
Actor Mel
Sabotage
Actor Mike Casey
Two Bright Boys
1938
1937
1936
Actor Brook Watson
Lloyd's of London
Actor Judge Maiben
The Prisoner of Shark Island
Actor Pop Reilly
Colleen
Actor Dr. Cudd
Timothy's Quest
Actor Uncle Peter
The Plough and the Stars
Actor Pop O'Connell
Spendthrift
Actor Judge Plumgate
Special Investigator
Actor Leach
The General Died at Dawn
Actor Tim
Laughing Irish Eyes
Actor Sam Smith
Let's Make a Million
