Matt McHugh

Biography

Matt McHugh was born Mathew O. McHugh on January 22, 1894 in Connellsville, PA. He was born into a show business family, joining his parents, brother Frank and sister Kitty on the stage as soon as he learned to talk. When Matt was fourteen, he performed an act with Kitty, but by 1930, the family had abandoned show business altogether. McHugh had already made his Broadway debut as Vincent Jones in Elmer Rice's Street Scenes (1929), and in 1931, he would come to Hollywood and repeat that stage role. He appeared with Edward Brophy as one of the Rollo Brothers in Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), and continued to get sizable film assignments, most notably the bourgeois Italian bridegroom Francesco in Laurel and Hardy's Fra Diavolo (The Devil's Brother) in 1933. Matt strongly resembled his more-famous brother, Frank, who had previously signed a contract in 1930 with the Warner Brothers Stock Company. Frank portrayed a variety of wise-cracking sidekicks with a sly wit and charming laugh, becoming a very popular character actor well into the 1950's. Matt approached his screen image differently, projecting an abrasive, sardonic screen image, despite his Pennsylvania origins. He usually performed his roles with a Brooklyn accent, and was often cast as rough-edged characters that were explicitly from Brooklyn, like cab drivers, bartenders and mechanics. For example, in the film Star Spangled Banner (1941), his one scene is an extended monologue during the climactic "Old Glory" sequence, in which he plays a character who literally embodies the spirit of Brooklyn. McHugh eventually appeared in over 200 films between 1931 and 1955, primarily in small cameo parts, but his best opportunities came in the 1940's with supporting roles in the numerous two-reel short comedies of Andy Clyde, Hugh Herbert, Walter Catlett, The Three Stooges and many others, usually cast as a lazy or caustic brother-in-law. Matt McHugh died of a heart attack on February 22, 1971 in Northridge, CA