GEORGE O'BRIEN
INFORMATION FROM IMDb
Date of birth
19 April 1899
San Francisco, California, USA
Date of death
4 September 1985
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. (stroke)
Spouse
Marguerite Churchill (15 July 1933 - 1948) (divorced)
Nickname
"The Chest"
Height
6' 0½" (1.84 m)
Trivia
Father, with Churchill, of 'Orin O'Brien' who has played bass with the New York Philharmonic since 1966.
Son of San Francisco police chief John O'Brien
Attended Santa Clara (California) College
U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet light-heavyweight boxing champion, 1918.
Father, with actress Marguerite Churchill, of writer Darcy O'Brien.
O'Brien served in the US Navy in World War I, and was decorated several times for bravery under fire.
Mini Biography
George was the son of the San Francisco Chief of Police who became a college athlete. He was the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the Pacific Fleet during World War I. In the early 20's, George wound up in Hollywood where he worked as a stuntman and part time actor. In 1924, Director John Ford picked virtually unknown George to star in his first picture, 'The Iron Horse'. Over the next two years, he would appear in four more Ford films and would co-star with Janet Gaynor in 'The Blue Eagle (1926)' and 'Sunrise (1927)'. 'Sunrise', a winner of two Academy Awards, was the story of a simple farmer who lets another woman talk him into murdering his wife. George remained popular until sound came along. By that time, his popularity was sliding, but he did make the transition to sound. With his rugged looks and physical size, he was soon a Western Cowboy Star. He was in some of the best stories ever written, 'Riders of the Purple Sage (1931)', and in some of the worst. But he was consistently in the Top Ten money-making Western Stars. He would appear in a few films outside the horse set, such as 'Ever Since Eve (1934)', but roles those would be few. By the end of the 30's, George was still a popular 'B' movie Cowboy Star, but he would not take the parts as seriously as he did a decade before. During World War Two, he hung up his spurs and he re-enlisted in the Navy where he fought in the Pacific and was decorated many times. After the war, when he would not find work in acting, John Ford, his old Director, would give him work with the cavalry in three of his films.
IMDb mini-biography byTony Fontana
Mini Biography- 2
Handsome American leading man of classic silent films who became a different kind of star in B-Western talkies. The son of a policeman who later became police chief of San Francisco and then California Director of Penology, O'Brien was raised around police stables and quickly became adept at horsemanship. He was a star athlete in school and intended to study medicine, but with the advent of World War I, he joined the Navy and volunteered to serve as a stretcher-bearer with the Marines. Following his discharge, a chance encounter with Tom Mix led to a job as camera assistant with Mix's production company. This in turn led to small jobs as a prop man, extra, stuntman, and finally bit player. 'John Ford (I)' spotted the husky young man and cast him in the lead role of his early Western The Iron Horse (1924). He continued to work for Ford and became a popular leading man for a number of top-flight directors. With the coming of sound, he moved almost exclusively into Westerns and became a popular star of low-budget oaters. At the outbreak of World War II, O'Brien reenlisted in the Navy, served for a time as a recruit trainer, then participated in numerous island invasions in the Pacific Theater and was highly decorated. He played a few roles, particularly for Ford, after the war, but returned to naval duty in the Korean conflict and again during the Vietnam war. He left service with the rank of captain, having four times been recommended for the rank of admiral. He spent his later years ranching, but following a heart attack, was confined to bed for the last few years of his life. He died in 1985.
IMDb mini-biography by Jim Beaver
Mini Biography-3
from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
This handsome, barrel-chested, good-natured Irishman starred in several classic silent movies, but spent much of his sound-era career in medium- and low-budget horse operas, at least partially by choice. The son of San Francisco's popular chief of police, O'Brien used parental pull to wangle a supporting role in Moran of the Lady Letty a 1922 Rudolph Valentino vehicle shot on location in the Bay City. Infatuated with moviemaking, he went to Hollywood as an assistant cameraman for the Fox studio, and was later chosen by director John Ford to play the youthful leading man in his epic Western, The Iron Horse (1924), the success of which won O'Brien overnight stardom. Self-confident and extroverted, he took to acting like a duck to water, and rapidly became one of Fox's top personalities, achieving his best results in Ford's Three Bad Men (1926, another epic Western), F. W. Murnau's silent masterpiece Sunrise (1927, in which the happy-go-lucky O'Brien surprised viewers with a skillful, serious performance), and Noah's Ark (1929), made at Warner Bros.
O'Brien easily made the transition to talkies, appearing for old pal Ford in Salute (1929, as a West Point cadet) and Seas Beneath (1931, as a WW1 sub commander). But during the 1930s this gregarious, athletic star spent most of his time on horseback, starring in a series of well-produced Westerns, many of them adaptations of Zane Grey novels, including The Lone Star Ranger (1930), Riders of the Purple Sage (1931), The Rainbow Trail, Mystery Ranch (both 1932), Robbers' Roost, The Last Trail (both 1933), The Dude Ranger (1934), When a Man's a Man (a Harold Bell Wright story considered by Western aficionados to be among O'Brien's best), and Thunder Mountain (both 1935).
At RKO, he eschewed Westerns at first in favor of outdoor action pictures, including Daniel Boone (1936), Park Avenue Logger and Windjammer (both 1937), but in 1938 he began another Western series, strictly in the Saturday-matinee groove but among the best of the breed. These films included The Renegade Ranger (1939, costarring Rita Hayworth), Marshal of Mesa City (also 1939), Bullet Code and Triple Justice (both 1940). He enlisted in the Navy before Pearl Harbor, the second of four stints (he also served during World War 1, the Korean War, and the early days of the Vietnam War), and didn't appear on-screen again until 1947, when he took a supporting role in the Warner Bros. musical My Wild Irish Rose He worked again with Ford in Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949, playing second fiddle to John Wayne, who'd been a bit player in Salute O'Brien made one more starring Western, Gold Raiders (1951, playing straight man for The Three Stooges!), and had a bit part in Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964) before retiring from the screen. He married actress and Purple Sage costar Marguerite Churchill in 1933; they were divorced in 1948.
Copyright © 1994 Leonard Maltin, used by arrangement with Signet, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.
Filmography
Actor
1. Cheyenne Autumn (1964) .... Maj. Braden
... aka John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (USA: complete title)
2. "Studio 57"
... aka Heinz Studio 57 (USA: alternative title)
- Typhoon (1956) TV Episode
3. Gold Raiders (1951) .... George O'Brien
... aka The Stooges Go West (UK)
4. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) .... Major Mac Allshard, Commanding Officer Fort Starke
5. Fort Apache (1948) .... Capt. Sam Collingwood
... aka War Party
6. My Wild Irish Rose (1947) .... William 'Duke' Muldoon
7. December 7th (1943) (voice) .... Narrator
... aka December 7th: The Movie (video title (restored version))
8. Triple Justice (1940) .... Brad Henderson
9. Stage to Chino (1940) .... Dan Clark
10. Prairie Law (1940) .... Brill Austin
11. Bullet Code (1940) .... Steve Holden
12. Legion of the Lawless (1940) .... Jeffrey Toland
13. The Marshal of Mesa City (1939) .... Cliff Mason
14. The Fighting Gringo (1939) .... Wade Barton
15. Timber Stampede (1939) .... Scott Baylor
16. Racketeers of the Range (1939) .... Barney O'Dell
17. Trouble in Sundown (1939) .... Clint Bradford
18. Arizona Legion (1939) .... Boone Yeager
19. Lawless Valley (1938) .... Larry Rhodes
20. The Renegade Ranger (1938) .... Captain Jack Steele
21. Painted Desert (1938) .... Bob McVey
22. Border G-Man (1938) .... Jim Galloway
23. Gun Law (1938) .... Marshal Tom O'Malley, aka The Raven
24. Windjammer (1937) .... Lane
25. Hollywood Cowboy (1937) .... Jeffery Carson
... aka Wings Over Wyoming
26. Park Avenue Logger (1937) .... Grant Curran
... aka Millionaire Playboy (UK)
... aka Tall Timber (USA: reissue title)
27. Daniel Boone (1936) .... Daniel Boone
28. The Border Patrolman (1936) .... Bob Wallace
29. O'Malley of the Mounted (1936) .... RCMP Constable O'Malley aka Duke Kinnard
30. Thunder Mountain (1935) .... Kal Emerson
31. Hard Rock Harrigan (1935) .... Hard Rock Harrigan
32. Whispering Smith Speaks (1935) .... Gordon Harrington, Jr. aka John 'Whispering' Smith
33. Cowboy Millionaire (1935) .... Bob Walker
34. When a Man's a Man (1935) .... Larry Knight
... aka Saga of the West
35. The Dude Ranger (1934) .... Ernest 'Dude' Selby
36. Ever Since Eve (1934) .... Neil Rogers
37. Frontier Marshal (1934) .... Michael Wyatt
38. The Last Trail (1933) .... Tom Daley
39. Life in the Raw (1933) .... Jim Barry
40. Smoke Lightning (1933) .... 'Smoke' Mason
41. Robbers' Roost (1932) .... Jim Wall
42. The Golden West (1932) .... David Lynch/Motano
43. Mystery Ranch (1932) .... Bob Sanborn
44. The Gay Caballero (1932) .... Ted Radcliffe
45. The Rainbow Trail (1932) .... John Shefford
46. Riders of the Purple Sage (1931) .... Jim Lassiter
47. A Holy Terror (1931) .... Tony Bard
48. Fair Warning (1931) .... Whistlin' Dan Barry
49. Seas Beneath (1931) .... Cmdr. Robert 'Bob' Kingsley
50. The Last of the Duanes (1930) .... Buck Duane
51. Rough Romance (1930) .... Billy West
52. The Lone Star Ranger (1930) .... Buck Duane
53. Salute (1929) .... Cadet John Randall
54. Masked Emotions (1929) .... Bramdlet Dickery
55. True Heaven (1929) .... Lieutenant Philip Gresson
56. Blindfold (1928) .... Robert Kelly
57. Noah's Ark (1928) .... Travis/Japheth
58. Honor Bound (1928) .... John Oglegree
59. Sharp Shooters (1928) .... George
... aka Three Naval Rascals (UK)
60. East Side, West Side (1927) .... John Breen
61. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) .... The Man (Anses)
... aka Sunrise (USA: short title)
62. Paid to Love (1927) .... Crown Prince Michael
63. The Romantic Age (1927)
64. Is Zat So? (1927) .... Ed Chick Cowan
65. The Blue Eagle (1926) .... George Darcy
66. Fig Leaves (1926) .... Adam Smith
67. 3 Bad Men (1926) .... Dan O'Malley
68. The Silver Treasure (1926) .... Nostromo
69. Rustling for Cupid (1926) .... Bradley Blatchford
70. The Johnstown Flood (1926) .... Tom O'Day
71. The Fighting Heart (1925) .... Denny Bolton
... aka Once to Every Man (UK)
72. Thank You (1925) .... Kenneth Jamieson
73. Havoc (1925) .... Dick Chappel
74. The Dancers (1925) .... Tony
75. The Roughneck (1924) .... Jerry Delaney
... aka Thorns of Passion (UK)
76. The Painted Lady (1924) .... Luther Smith
77. The Iron Horse (1924) .... Davy Brandon
78. The Man Who Came Back (1924) .... Henry Potter
79. The Sea Hawk (1924) (uncredited) .... Galley slave
80. Shadows of Paris (1924) .... Louis
81. Woman-Proof (1923) .... Bill Burleigh
82. The Ne'er-Do-Well (1923) .... Clifford
83. The Ghost Breaker (1922) (uncredited) .... One of the 'Ghosts'
84. Moran of the Lady Letty (1922) (uncredited) .... Deck Hand
85. White Hands (1922) .... Sailor
