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Hobart Cavanaugh, Broadway Thru A Keyhole, 1932. MGM called Erwin back in the first week of shooting to join a Metro film. This story by New York columnist Walter Winchell – punched out by Al Jolson on learning the movie was about Jolson’s romance with his wife, Ruby Keeler, and tried to connect her with a gangster based on the recently murdered Larry Fay.
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Arthur Lake, Blondie, 1938. Gloria Blondell (Joan’s younger sister, and the first Mrs Cubby Broccoli), Shirley Deane and Una Merkel were all the mix for the comic-strip queen (still going strong since 1930). Hubby was nearly Erwin. Instead, it was Lake playing Dagwood Bumstead on film, radio and TV from 1938 to 1950 – the year that Erwin won his own Stu Erwin Show for five years
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James Gleason, My Gal Sal, 1941. First choice for Pat Howley but Gleason took the role in the story of songwriter Paul Dresser. It was said to be based on a book by his novelist brother, Theodore Dreiser. Except he never write such a tome. (Yes, their surnames are different).
- Will Rogers Jr, The Story of Will Rogers, 1952. A 1936 Oscar nominee for one of his several slow-talkin’ hayseeds, Erwin was better suited than Warners’ other ideas: Bing Crosby, Joel McCrea, John Wayne(!).
Birth year: 1903Death year: 1967Other name: Casting Calls: 4