J.M. Kerrigan

Acting

Born Dec 16, 1884

From Dublin, Ireland

Died Apr 29, 1964

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.

J.M. Kerrigan

Known For

Gone with the Wind

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The Sea Hawk

Tarzan and the Amazons

The Fastest Gun Alive

Call Northside 777

The Wolf Man

Union Pacific

The Spanish Main

Werewolf of London

Filmography — Acting

Gone with the Wind

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The Sea Hawk

Tarzan and the Amazons

The Fastest Gun Alive

Call Northside 777

The Wolf Man

Union Pacific

The Spanish Main

Werewolf of London

Wilson

The Lost Patrol

The Long Voyage Home

The Informer

Mr. Lucky

Black Beauty

My Cousin Rachel

Action in the North Atlantic

Sabotage

Untamed

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Fighting Seabees

Park Row

A Study in Scarlet

The Wild North

No Time for Comedy

The Luck of the Irish

Appointment for Love

Young Tom Edison

The Black Camel

Sealed Cargo

Little Orphan Annie

Spendthrift

The Great John L.

Colleen

The Flying Irishman

The General Died at Dawn

Rockabye

Barbary Coast

Spring Madness

Careless Lady

Don't Bet on Women

Vanessa: Her Love Story

Mrs. Mike

The Prisoner of Shark Island

Captains of the Clouds

A Feather in Her Hat

The Fountain

The Crime Doctor's Warning

Lloyd's of London

Vanity Street

The Silver Whip

Hot Tip

Curtain Call

Congo Maisie

It's a Dog's Life

Sorority House

The Plough and the Stars

The Great Man Votes

Special Investigator

Abie's Irish Rose

Lightnin'

Let's Make a Million

Song o' My Heart

Undercover Agent

6,000 Enemies

The Key