Sidney Blackmer

Acting

Sidney Blackmer

Born 1895-07-12 · Salisbury, North Carolina, USA

Sidney Alderman Blackmer (13 July 1895 – 6 October 1973) was an American actor. Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, North Carolina. He started off in an insurance and financial business but gave up on it. While working as a builder's laborer on a new building, he saw a Pearl White serial being filmed and immediately decided to go into acting. Blackmer went to New York hoping to act on the stage. While in the city, he took jobs and extra work at various film studios at the then motion picture capital, Fort Lee, New Jersey, including a bit part in the highly popular serial, The Perils of Pauline (1914). He made his Broadway debut in 1917, but his career was interrupted by service in the U.S. military in World War I. After the war, he returned to the theatre and in 1929 returned to motion pictures and went on to be a major character actor in more than 120 films. He won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Actor (Drama) for his role in the Broadway play, Come Back, Little Sheba. In film, Blackmer is remembered for his more than a dozen portrayals of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and for his role in the Academy Award-winning 1968 Roman Polanski film about urban New York witches, Rosemary's Baby, in which he played an over-solicitous neighbor. A humanitarian, Blackmer served as the national vice president of the United States Muscular Dystrophy Association. In 1972, he was honored with the North Carolina Award in the Fine Arts category. It is the state of North Carolina's highest civilian award. On his passing in 1973, Blackmer was interred in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery in his hometown of Salisbury, North Carolina. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sidney Blackmer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Rosemary's Baby poster
7.8

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

Rosemary's Baby

1968

High Society poster
6.8

With socialite Tracy Lord about to remarry, her ex-husband - with the help of a sympathetic reporter - has 48 hours to convince her that she really still loves him.

High Society

1956

Duel in the Sun poster
6.4

Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.

Duel in the Sun

1946

The High and the Mighty poster
6.0

Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.

The High and the Mighty

1954

Little Caesar poster
6.9

A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?

Little Caesar

1931

How to Murder Your Wife poster
6.3

Stanley Ford is a successful cartoonist and happily single. That is, until he gets drunk at a friend's bachelor party and impulsively proposes to the beautiful woman who pops out of the cake. Once sober, he regrets the decision, but she won't agree to a divorce. Stanley jokingly vents his frustrations in his comic strip by having the main character kill his wife. But when his actual wife goes missing and Stanley is arrested for her murder, he has a change of heart.

How to Murder Your Wife

1965

Heart of the West poster
5.3

Problems come in the form of one of Hopalong Cassidy's neighbors, but the matter is settled when Hoppy roots out the troublemaker.

Heart of the West

1936

The Wrecker poster
3.7

The Wrecker is a flinty-eyed demolition engineer named Regan (Jack Holt). While he's off on another assignment, Regan's wife Mary (Genevieve Tobin) and supposed best friend Cummings (Sidney Blackmer) engage in some heavy petting. About to wash his hands of his faithless wife and his back-stabbing chum, our hero is compelled to save both their lives when they're pinned under the wreckage of a collapsed schoolhouse. George E. Stones supplies some good-natured ethnic humor as Regan's junk-dealer pal Shapiro.

The Wrecker

1933

It's a Wonderful World poster
6.5

Detective Guy Johnson's client, Willie Heywood, is framed for murder. While Guy hides him so he can catch the real killer, both of them are nabbed by the police, tried, convicted and sentenced to jail: Guy for a year with Willie to be executed. On the way to jail, Guy comes across a clue and escapes from the police.

It's a Wonderful World

1939

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt poster
6.8

A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

1956

Tammy and the Bachelor poster
7.0

An unsophisticated young woman from the Mississippi swamps falls in love with an unconventional southern gentleman.

Tammy and the Bachelor

1957

I Want a Divorce poster
10.0

Comedy about newlyweds wondering if their marriage was a mistake.

I Want a Divorce

1940

Good-bye Love poster
6.3

A sexy golddigger lands who she thinks is a wealthy big-game hunter from a royal family. What she doesn't know is that not only is he not wealthy, nor a big-game hunter nor from a royal family, but he's only a butler. Complications ensue as he tries to keep up the pretense.

Good-bye Love

1933

Within the Law poster
6.5

Shopgirl Mary Turner, sentenced to prison for someone else's theft, is released and takes revenge upon those who wronged her in powerful but lawful ways.

Within the Law

1939

In Old Oklahoma poster
6.2

Cowboy Dan Somers and oilman Jim "Hunk" Gardner compete for oil lease rights on Indian land in Oklahoma, as well as for the favors of schoolteacher Cathy Allen.

In Old Oklahoma

1943

In Old Chicago poster
6.7

The O'Leary brothers -- honest Jack and roguish Dion -- become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

In Old Chicago

1938

Wilson poster
5.6

The political career of Woodrow Wilson is chronicled, beginning with his decision to leave his post at Princeton to run for Governor of New Jersey, and his subsequent ascent to the Presidency of the United States. During his terms in office, Wilson must deal with the death of his first wife, the onslaught of German hostilities leading to American involvement in the Great War, and his own country's reticence to join the League of Nations. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2006.

Wilson

1944

People Will Talk poster
7.1

A successful, unorthodox doctor befriends a young woman with suicidal ideations due to her pregnancy by her ex, a military reservist killed in action.

People Will Talk

1951

A Covenant with Death poster
4.8

An innocent man is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but as he's about to be hanged he accidentally kills his executioner. He now faces a new trial, presided over by a young and inexperienced judge.

A Covenant with Death

1967

Dance, Girl, Dance poster
6.4

Judy O'Brien is an aspiring ballerina in a dance troupe. Also in the company is Bubbles, a brash mantrap who leaves the struggling troupe for a career in burlesque. When the company disbands, Bubbles gives Judy a thankless job as her stooge. The two eventually clash when both fall for the same man.

Dance, Girl, Dance

1940

Heidi poster
6.9

Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.

Heidi

1937

False Pretenses poster
7.3

A girl who's just lost her job meets a drunk millionaire on a bridge who's just lost his money. They go back to his house, and eventually come up with a plan to benefit them both: he'll scrounge enough money together to teach her how to be a lady, and then introduce her to his rich friends so she can snag a husband, after which she'll pay him a finder's fee. Complications ensue.

False Pretenses

1935

The Count of Monte Cristo poster
6.8

Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.

The Count of Monte Cristo

1934

A Song Is Born poster
6.4

The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.

A Song Is Born

1948