Celebrity Birthday of the Day – July 25

As you’re well aware, The Back Row loves to do “Celebrity Birthday of the Day” features on character actors, but today’s birthday is for a guy who practically invented the term “character actor”. There are only two male actors who have ever won three Academy Awards. One of them is Jack Nicholson, which shouldn’t surprise you too much. But would you have ever guessed that the other actor is Walter Brennan? That’s right, Mr. Brennan achieved the impressive feat of winning three Academy Awards in six years, when he took home “Best Supporting Actor” Oscars for Come and Get It in 1936, Kentucky in 1938, and The Westerner in 1940. Born in 1894, Walter Brennan may not have been a “star” per se, but he was probably the most sought-after character actor in Hollywood for several decades and garnered a total of 239 credits to his name! Some of the many classic titles he appeared in include The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, Fury, Sergeant York, Red River, My Darling Clementine, To Have and Have Not, The Pride of the Yankees, Bad Day at Black Rock, and How the West Was Won. As you probably noticed, his grizzled looks and gravelly voice made him particularly popular in westerns, and one of his most famous roles was playing John Wayne’s sidekick, Stumpy, in Rio Bravo. Walter Brennan passed away on September 21, 1974 at the age of 80, but left one hell of a legacy behind.

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