Ralph Dunn

Biography

Prolific character actor Ralph Dunn was born in Titusville, PA, in 1902. He attended college for a while, but dropped out to join a traveling vaudeville troupe, and performed in minstrel shows and melodramas until 1935, when he headed to Hollywood, but not for the usual reasons vaudevillians made that trip--his parents lived there and his father was in poor health, so he went to help his mother take care of him. In order to make some money he signed up with Central Casting, where his stocky tough-guy look secured him a succession of jobs as cops, thugs, bouncers, bartenders, fight managers, and the like. His Hollywood career lasted more than 30 years, during which time he kept his hand in stage work. He appeared in the 1951 Broadway production of "The Moon Is Blue" and played the pajama factory owner in the Broadway classic "The Pajama Game", a role he repeated when it was made into a film in 1957. He had more than 300 credits to his name, including television work. His last film role was as a priest in Black Like Me (1964), and his final appearance was in an episode of the series N.Y.P.D. (1967). He died in Flushing, NY, in 1968.