Gavin Muir

Biography

Hailing from Chicago (his birth has also been noted as late as 1907 which to the purpose would be too late), Gavin Muir had that sort of lean and hungry John Carradine face and slight build that begged for character villain parts. Indeed he was bit by the acting bug and started in regional theater but jumped to Broadway by 1920, though his first role noted was "Enter Madame" in 1922. This play was also the debut Broadway performance for another young actor destined for Hollywood -- but a sadly short career -- Ross Alexander. By 1923 Muir's abilities beckoned further demands, and he produced and performed in the comedy "Love Set". In fact the majority of his plays were comedy rather than drama. And with twenty-one plays to his credit (until 1939) and making the round of famous New York houses, the St. James and the Lyceum, for example, Muir worked with some Broadway's greatest leads and some later fellow film actors, such as, Harry Davenport, Robert Warwick, and Henry Hull. Although he had one film for an uncredited part in 1932, he was a fixture of the Broadway theater season until 1933. Although Muir still had a few more Broadway plays to do, he was finding his niche in Hollywood. The next year he was in the film adaptation of the play Mary of Scotland (1936) directed by John Ford. Along with an assemblage of some of the best character actors of Hollywood, Muir joined a rogues' gallery of self-seeking Scottish lords who included: Robert Barrat, William Stack, and Ian Keith trying to discredit the young queen. Muir was busy thereafter through the war years of the 1940s his acting, and especially his various British accents (he was sometimes mistaken as a British actor) but others were in demand as military officer, doctor, noble, dignitary - and, of course, villains. Into the 1950s he even endured Abbott and Costello in their continued pop success, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), one of five such formula 'Meet' films. The film parts continued to get leaner, so he ventured into TV, doing playhouse theater and also some series. He was a regular-the butler Hollister - on The Betty Hutton Show (1959) and did not retire until later 1965 after over seventy screen appearances.