Rex Lease

Acting

Rex Lease

Born 1903-02-11 · Central City [now part of Huntington], West Virginia, USA

From Wikipedia Rex Lloyd Lease (February 11, 1903 – January 3, 1966) was an American actor. He appeared in over 300 films, mainly in westerns. Lease arrived in Hollywood in 1924. He found bit and supporting parts at Film Booking Office (FBO), Rayart, more, and was given the opportunity to play a few leads. His first film was A Woman Who Sinned (1924). Rex's earliest westerns were a pair of Tim McCoy silents at MGM, one of which was The Law of the Range (1928) which had a very young Joan Crawford as the heroine and Rex as the "Solitaire Kid". Tim and Lease became friends, and over the next dozen or so years he appeared in seven more McCoy westerns. He had a featured role in director Frank Capra's The Younger Generation (1929), a tale of a Jewish family that move to a more upscale neighborhood. He successfully made the transition to talkies, and starred in melodramas, action flicks, old dark house mysteries, and comedies as well as a couple of western serials and about a dozen low-budget sagebrush yarns and outdoor adventures. In between lead roles, Lease did featured parts in some B westerns. He was Hoot Gibson's brother in Cavalcade of the West (1936); Rex played the "Pecos Kid" in McCoy's Lightnin' Bill Carson (1936); and he worked in a couple of Tom Tylers, Ridin' On (1936) and Fast Bullets (1936). Rex's finale as a star had him teaming up with Rin-Tin-Tin Jr. in The Silver Trail (1937). Though no longer afforded star billing, he continued in smaller roles into the 1950s in films and on TV.

Acting credits

The Grapes of Wrath poster
7.8

Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.

The Grapes of Wrath

1940

You Came Along poster
7.3

War hero flier Bob Collins goes on a war bond selling tour with two buddies, and substitute "chaperone" Ivy Hotchkiss. Bob's a cheerful Lothario with several girls in every town on the tour. After some amusing escapades, Bob and Ivy become romantically involved, agreeing it's "just fun up in the air." Then Ivy finds out the real reason why it shouldn't be anything more.

You Came Along

1945

Flame of Barbary Coast poster
5.5

Duke Fergus falls for Ann 'Flaxen' Tarry in the Barbary Coast in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He loses money to crooked gambler Boss Tito Morell, goes home, learns to gamble, and returns. After he makes a fortune, he opens his own place with Flaxen as the entertainer; but the 1906 quake destroys his place.

Flame of Barbary Coast

1945

Lost in Alaska poster
6.2

After two volunteer firemen rescue a gold prospector from suicide, they discover that the police mistakenly want them for murder.

Lost in Alaska

1952

A Foreign Affair poster
7.1

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.

A Foreign Affair

1948

Saboteur poster
6.9

Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.

Saboteur

1942

The Naughty Nineties poster
6.7

In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.

The Naughty Nineties

1945

Canyon Passage poster
6.7

In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.

Canyon Passage

1946

A Chump at Oxford poster
6.9

The boys get jobs as a butler and maid-- Stan in drag-- for a dinner party. When that ends in disaster, they resort to sweeping streets and accidentally capture a bank robber. The grateful bank president sends them to Oxford, at their request, and higher-education hijinks ensue.

A Chump at Oxford

1940

The Gazebo poster
6.9

TV writer Elliott Nash buries a blackmailer under the new gazebo in his suburban backyard. But the nervous man can't let the body rest there.

The Gazebo

1959

Phony Express poster
6.1

Set in the old west, the stooges are three tramps wanted for vagrancy. After ruining a medicine peddlers show, they arrive in Peaceful Gulch where a picture has been printed declaring them to be three famous lawmen coming to clean up the town. Assigned to guard the bank, the boys have the local gang scared at first, but when the gang learns who the stooges really are, they rob the bank. The boys go in pursuit, find the bad guy's hideout, subdue the bandits and recover the money. Written by Mitch Shapiro

Phony Express

1943

The Unholy Wife poster
4.7

A woman marries a man for his wealth, then concocts a plan to kill him, take his money, and run off with her lover. Things go wrong when they accidentally kill the wrong person.

The Unholy Wife

1957

Ride, Vaquero! poster
6.1

Two Mexican outlaws, Rio and Esqueda, raised as stepbrothers, have a showdown over the issue of whether to evict new settlers from their Texas border territory.

Ride, Vaquero!

1953

Buck Privates Come Home poster
6.4

Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.

Buck Privates Come Home

1947

Covered Wagon Raid poster
7.2

Under the leadership of a cutthroat named Grif, a band of outlaws has systematically been robbing and murdering settlers bound for the large Chandler ranch which has been cut up into small parcels of land for purchase.

Covered Wagon Raid

1950

The Time of Their Lives poster
7.2

Two ghosts, who were mistakenly branded as traitors during the Revolutionary War, return to 20th century New England to retrieve a letter from George Washington which would prove their innocence.

The Time of Their Lives

1946

The Pride of the Yankees poster
7.3

The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.

The Pride of the Yankees

1942

Sun Valley Cyclone poster
7.0

In this western, Red Ryder rounds up a gang of horse thieves who have been stealing cavalry horses.

Sun Valley Cyclone

1946

Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town poster
6.6

When Pa wins a jingle-writing contest, he and Ma head for New York City. They they get in trouble with gangsters when they lose some stolen money which they had already agreed to deliver to one of the thugs.

Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town

1950

The Mummy's Tomb poster
5.5

A high priest of Karnak travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka thirty years earlier.

The Mummy's Tomb

1942

Roarin' Guns poster
7.7

Tim Corwin- an agent for the Cattlemen's Association- is assigned to look into a range war between settlers and powerful cattle baron Walton.

Roarin' Guns

1936

Backlash poster
6.5

Jim Slater's father (whom he never knew) died in the Apache ambush at Gila Valley, and Jim is searching for the one survivor, who supposedly went for help but disappeared with a lot of gold. In the process, he gets several people gunning for him, and he keeps meeting liberated woman Karyl Orton, who may be on a similar mission. Renewed Apache hostilities and an impending range war provide complications.

Backlash

1956

Jesse James at Bay poster
4.8

When Jesse learns that Krager is cheating settlers, he and his gang rob trains to obtain money for them to purchase their land. Krager, finding a Jesse look alike in Burns, hires him to wreck havoc on the ranchers. When Jesse kills Burns he switches clothes and goes after the culprits.

Jesse James at Bay

1941

The Cowboy and the Bandit poster
7.0

Bill travels to a new state after the outlaw Scarface saves him from a lynch mob. There he takes a job on the Barton ranch and joins in the fight against gang leader Larkin. Finding a wounded Scarface he helps him recover. Arrested by Larkin's stooge Sheriff, and with another lynch mob after him, he once again needs Scarface's help.

The Cowboy and the Bandit

1935