Ted Healy (Who’s Who at MGM, 1937) 🇺🇸
Ted Healy’s childhood ambition was to take it easy, so he became a stage and screen comedian. Born in Houston, Texas, on October 1, young Ted lived there for four years before his parents took him to Ohio.
From Ohio, Healy moved with his family to New York, and it was there he received his education -- at the prep school for Fordham University.
He decided to profit from the humor he had been dishing out gratis and went into vaudeville. For fifteen years he was a familiar and entertaining figure behind the footlights of nearly every vaudeville house in the United States and Europe.
Originated Stooges
Healy was the originator of stooges in the theatre. Also he was the first to use animals for comedy and laughs on the stage, and was the first to organize a vaudeville stage “unit.”
He made one invasion of motion pictures in 1931, when he was the comedy star of “Soup to Nuts”; played in a few Hal Roach comedies, then returned to the stage. Between vaudeville engagements he appeared in many musical shows, including “Vanities of 1927,” “Passing Shows,” “Night in Venice,” “Night in Spain,” “The Gang’s All Here” and “Crazy Quilt.”
With M-G-M in 1933
Healy came to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer early in 1933 and has since played comedy roles in many musical and feature productions, among them, Hollywood Party, “Blonde Bombshell,” “Stage Mother,” Dancing Lady, “Fugitive Lovers,” “Lazy River,” “Operator 13,” “Paris Interlude,” “Death on the Diamond,” “The Band Plays On,” “The Winning Ticket,” Reckless, “Mad Love,” “Murder in the Fleet,” “Here Comes the Band,” “It’s in the Air,” San Francisco, “Speed,” “The Longest Night,” “Mad Holiday” and The Good Old Soak.
Healy regards New York as his home town. He owns a farm and likes to work in the fields. He is a lover of dogs and admits that racing forms are his favorite reading matter.
He is five feet ten and one-half inches tall, weighs 180 pounds and has brown hair and eyes.
When he is not engaged in picture work at the studio, Ted likes to take his dogs and go into California backwoods on hunting trips. With only a packhorse and the dogs for his companions, Healy is happiest when he is playing the role of Nimrod.
Interested in Sailing
Healy also enjoys swimming for recreation. As a young man he was very proficient at this sport and participated in several competitive meets. Another sport which he pursues is horseback riding and he gets in an early morning canter whenever possible. Like many other Hollywood film players, Ted has recently become interested in sailboating and he is now spending much of his time on the water.
His friends are all people with highly-developed senses of humor. Ted believes that people who can crack a joke when things are going wrong are really worthwhile. His greatest ambition is to become a gentleman of leisure, with plenty of time to hunt, ride and sail.
Ted doesn’t believe in hunches, but he subscribes to all the quaint superstitions of the theatre. He will not allow whistling in a dressing room and always knocks on wood before beginning a scene.
His favorite childhood memories are of the days when he attended De La Salle school with Jack Oakie and Bryan Foy.
Collection: Who’s Who at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1937)