Budd Fine

Budd Fine (September 10, 1894 – February 9, 1966) was an American character actor of the silent and sound film eras. Born Budd Nathan Fine on September 10, 1894, in Hartford Connecticut, Fine served in the US Army during World War I, during which he was awarded a Purple Heart. Fine broke into the film industry in a film short in 1924, Aggravatin' Papa, and would make his feature film debut later that year with a small role in the silent film, Hold Your Breath. During the silent film era, he would make mostly shorts, with only a handful of appearances in feature films, including Buster Keaton's Battling Butler (1926), and as a soldier in the Cecil B. De Mille's 1927 epic, The King of Kings. With the advent of the talking picture, Fine began to work steadily in feature films. He would have small roles in many notable films, such as: the first talking version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1931's A Connecticut Yankee, starring Will Rogers; Les Misérables in 1935, starring Fredric March and Charles Laughton; Anything Goes (1936), starring Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman; William Dieterle's 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton; the Cary Grant and Jean Arthur vehicle, Only Angels Have Wings, directed by Howard Hawks; another Grant film in 1943, also starring Laraine Day, Mr. Lucky; the classic film noir, Lady in the Lake (1947), starring Robert Montgomery; the 1947 Bob Hope comedy, also starring Dorothy Lamour, My Favorite Brunette;. The 1950s would see Fine reunite with De Mille, on his epic film, Samson and Delilah (1950), starring Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr; he would also appear that year in the musical, Annie Get Your Gun, starring Betty Hutton and Howard Keel. He appeared in over 100 films, including over 80 feature films.