Percy Kilbride

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Percy Kilbride (July 16, 1888 - December 11, 1964), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Irish immigrants. Kilbride was a popular character actor. Despite being raised in a big city, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as lazy Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle movie series.

Kilbride began working in theater at the age of 12 and eventually left his young son and young daughter to become an actor on Broadway. Ironically in light of his most familiar roles, he first played an 18th-century French dandy in A Tale of Two Cities.

His film debut was as Jakey in White Woman in 1933. He left Broadway for good in 1942.

In 1945 he appeared in The Southerner.

In 1947 he and Marjorie Main played the supporting parts of Ma and Pa Kettle in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. Those were followed by the popular Ma and Pa Kettle series with Kilbride and Main playing the main characters, during which time he also played in other movies.

Kilbride retired after making the 1955 film Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki He did, however, take a small role in Son of Flubber in 1963.

He died in Los Angeles, California, after having been struck by a car while walking near his home with a friend.

Kilbride left his estate to the four nephews and a sister of his wife.

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