Oscar O'Shea

Acting

Oscar O'Shea

Born 1881-10-07 · Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Oscar O'Shea (8 October 1881 – 6 April 1960), born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, was a Canadian-American character actor with over 100 film appearances from 1937 to 1953. O'Shea was a comic actor who earned a million dollars but lost it all in the Great Depression. His first straight role came in a Federal Theatre Project production of It Can't Happen Here, a play based on the novel of the same name. His first film was Captains Courageous (1937). Beginning in 1929, O'Shea operated the Oscar O'Shea Players repertory theater company in the Embassy Theatre in Ottawa, Canada. He eventually ended the enterprise "to seek a field where his art would be more widely appreciated." He then set up an operation in Chicago, "where he managed his own theatre and stock company during good and bad years." O'Shea died in Hollywood, California in 1960 at age 78.

Acting credits

Angels with Dirty Faces poster
7.5

Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.

Angels with Dirty Faces

1938

Captains Courageous poster
7.4

Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.

Captains Courageous

1937

The Roaring Twenties poster
7.5

After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.

The Roaring Twenties

1939

Susan and God poster
6.5

A flighty socialite neglects her family to promote a new religious group.

Susan and God

1940

Rosalie poster
6.0

West Point cadet Dick Thorpe falls in love with a girl, who turns out to be a princess from an European kingdom.

Rosalie

1937

Of Mice and Men poster
7.3

An intellectually disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.

Of Mice and Men

1939

Love Affair poster
7.0

A French playboy and an American former nightclub singer fall in love aboard a ship. They arrange to reunite six months later, if neither has changed their mind.

Love Affair

1939

Without Reservations poster
6.3

Kit Madden is traveling to Hollywood, where her best-selling novel is to be filmed. Aboard the train, she encounters Marines Rusty and Dink, who don't know she is the author of the famous book, and who don't think much of the ideas it proposes. She and Rusty are greatly attracted, but she doesn't know how to deal with his disdain for the book's author.

Without Reservations

1946

South of Dixie poster
10.0

To save their music publishing firm from bankruptcy, Bill "Brains' Watson creates a colorful life-story about his partner, Danny Lee, representing him as a descendant of Louisiana's famous Josh Lee family and rightful poet laureate of Dixieland.

South of Dixie

1944

Happy Land poster
7.1

An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.

Happy Land

1943

Undercover Agent poster
4.2

A railway postal clerk goes after a sweepstakes counterfeiting ring.

Undercover Agent

1939

Ringside Maisie poster
5.6

Young undefeated boxer Terry Dolan, who's been lying to his invalid mother about his career, confides to Maisie that he hates and is terrified by boxing and wants out. Not wanting to let down his best friend and manager Skeets Maguire, who has hopes of him becoming the next champion, he is reluctant to bring up the subject with him. Maisie convinces Terry to tell Skeets, whose unexpected reaction induces him to step into the ring again.

Ringside Maisie

1941

20 Mule Team poster
6.6

It is 1892 in Death Valley and the yields from the Borax ore are getting so small that refining it is a losing proposition. The only thing that will save the company is a new deposit of high grade Borax, and Skinner Bill Bragg has a pouch of it that he got from a dead prospector he buried on the road. Stag Roper knows the value of the strike could be worth millions, but he needs Bragg to find the prospector's claim so they can record it and become rich partners. While Roper has no intention of cutting Bragg in on the millions, he also has his eye on young Jean Johnson. Josie Johnson, Jean's mother, sees Roper as the scalawag he is, and that means trouble in Furnace Flat.

20 Mule Team

1940

The Mummy's Ghost poster
5.6

An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning that Ananka's spirit has been reincarnated into another body, he kidnaps a young woman of Egyptian descent with a mysterious resemblance to the princess. However, the high priest's greedy desires cause him to lose control of the mummy...

The Mummy's Ghost

1944

The Shining Hour poster
6.7

A nightclub dancer shakes the foundations of a wealthy farming family after she marries into it.

The Shining Hour

1938

Stranger on the Third Floor poster
6.5

Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.

Stranger on the Third Floor

1940

Corvette K-225 poster
6.2

The story of a Canadian WWII naval vessel, with a dramatic subplot concerning her first captain.

Corvette K-225

1943

Her Primitive Man poster
7.5

An anthropologist unwittingly takes a man disguised as a "primitive man" back to New York as a specimen.

Her Primitive Man

1944

Fly By Night poster
6.7

Young intern Jeff Burton, impulsively offers a lift to an odd-looking gentlemen. It soon turns out that Jeff's passenger is an inventor has just escaped from a shady sanitarium, where he has been held prisoner by Nazi spies.

Fly By Night

1942

Four Mothers poster
6.8

Four married sisters face motherhood, financial, marital and family issues together.

Four Mothers

1941

Blossoms in the Dust poster
6.6

Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.

Blossoms in the Dust

1941

Lydia poster
6.5

Lydia MacMillan, a wealthy woman who has never married, invites several men her own age to her home to reminisce about the times when they were young and courted her. In memory, each romance seemed splendid and destined for happiness, but in each case, Lydia realizes, the truth was less romantic, and ill-starred.

Lydia

1941

Mannequin poster
6.0

Jessie, a young working class woman, seeks to improve her life by marrying her boyfriend, only to find out that he is no better than what she left behind.

Mannequin

1938

Double Wedding poster
6.4

A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.

Double Wedding

1937