Years active 1940-1958 Name Gus Schilling | Role Film actor Ex-spouse Betty Rowland | |
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Full Name August Schilling Born June 20, 1908 ( 1908-06-20 ) New York City, New York, U.S. Died June 16, 1957, Los Angeles, California, United States Movies The Lady from Shanghai, Citizen Kane, You Were Never Lovelier, On Dangerous Ground, Pardon My Terror Similar People William A Seiter, Orson Welles, Edward Bernds, Nicholas Ray, Peter Godfrey | ||
What were you doing all night by gloria stuart with gus schilling harry wham trio 78 rpm record
August "Gus" Schilling (June 20, 1908 — June 16, 1957) was an American film actor who started in burlesque comedy and usually played nervous comic roles, often unbilled. A friend of Orson Welles, he appeared in five of the director's films — Citizen Kane (first screen performance), The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth and Touch of Evil (final performance, released posthumously).
Contents
- What were you doing all night by gloria stuart with gus schilling harry wham trio 78 rpm record
- Schilling Lane TRAINING FOR TROUBLE Part 1
- Career
- Personal life
- Filmography
- References
Schilling & Lane TRAINING FOR TROUBLE Part 1
Career
Born in New York City, Schilling had a rubber face and flustered gestures which made him a natural comedian and he began his career understudying comedy stars Bert Lahr and Joe Penner on Broadway. He soon became a favorite among burlesque comedians, who welcomed him into the burlesque profession. Schilling married burlesque star Betty Rowland and the couple toured in the Minsky burlesque troupe.
Orson Welles saw Schilling in New York and followed him to Florida. There Welles hired Schilling to appear in a stage production featuring several Shakespearean scenes. "I learned my part by taking the script to Welles and having him translate the lines to everyday English," Schilling recalled in 1939. Welles promised Schilling a part in Welles's first motion picture, and kept his promise: Schilling is featured in Citizen Kane (1941). This established Schilling in Hollywood movies as a "nervous" comedian (he plays a jittery symphony conductor in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin', for example). He also co-starred with character comedian Richard Lane in a series of 11 comedy shorts for Columbia Pictures; the series ran from 1945 to 1950.
Personal life
In July 1945 Schilling was arrested in Hollywood on charges of possession of narcotics. At his trial he testified that he admitted ownership of the marijuana to save his wife from arrest. The all-woman jury acquitted Schilling on November 29.
Schilling's marriage to Betty Rowland ended in divorce. His professional career remained successful, and he worked in movies and television throughout the 1950s. His final film, Welles's Touch of Evil, in which he has a brief uncredited appearance, was released in May 1958, nearly a year after his death.
Schilling died of a heart attack in his Hollywood apartment, four days short of his 49th birthday.