- Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Success At Any Price, 1933. In John Howard Lawson’s stage play, Joe Martin was a Jew who resented working for a gentile. Not when Junior Doug played him… Gargan was an ex-private eye who played a lot of them in his career of 104 screen roles.
- Stuart Erwin, Bachelor Bait, 1934. Gargan, Ginger and helmer William A Seiter were first announced for the comedy fluff Erwin, Rochelle Hudson and George Stevens made the movie – Stevens’ first film (and flop) at RKO.
- Dick Foran, The Fighting 69th, 1939. Off they go to WW11 – cowardly James Cagney, the Reverend Pat O’Brien, Colonel George Brent, Sergeant Alan Hale – but not Gargan. His Long John Wynn was taken over by the five years younger Foran.: “The picture is better,” said the New York Times, “if you can manage to forget the plot.”
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Lloyd Nolan, Martin Kane, Private Detective, TV, 1951-1952. He had a private eye face and voice… Having already created radio’s Barry Craig, Confidential Investigator in 1949, plus making three films as shamus Ellery Queen, Gargan was an inevitable choice for this new private dick, first on radio, then on the new fangled tube – and then, he suddenly quit after two seasons, 12 episodes,1949-1952. The whodunnits continued with a new Kane each season: Lloyd Nolan, 1951-1952; Lee Tracy, 1952-1953; and Mark Stevens, 1953-1954. And then guess what… Gargan returned for one season’s 39 shows of The New Adventures of Martin Kane, 1957-1958, shot on Europe’s meaner streets.
Birth year: 1905Death year: 1979Other name: Casting Calls: 4