About Me
Date of Birth
17 February 1907, Oakland, California, USA
Date of Death
23 April 1983, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
Clarence Linden Crabbe
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Mini Biography
Buster Crabbe graduated from the University of Southern California. In 1931, while working on That's My Boy (1932) for Columbia, he was tested by MGM for Tarzan and rejected. Paramount put him in King of the Jungle (1933) as Kaspa, the Lion Man (after a book of that title but clearly a copy of the Tarzan stories). Publicity for this film emphasized his having won the 1932 Olympic 400-meter freestyle swimming championship and suggested a rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller. Producer Sol Lesser wanted Crabbe for an independent Tarzan the Fearless (1933), though he first had to get James Pierce to waive rights to the part already promised to him by his father-in-law, Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was released as both a feature and a serial; most houses showed only the first serial episode, which critics panned as a badly organized feature. Just prior to the film's release Crabbe married his college sweetheart and gave himself one year to either make it as an actor or start law school at USC. Paramount put him in a number of Zane Grey westerns, then Universal gave him the lead him in very successful sci-fi serials (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers) from 1936-40. In 1940 he began a string of Billy the Kid westerns for low-budget (VERY low-budget) studio PRC. After World War II he acted only occasionally, devoting much of his time to his swimming pool corporation and operation of a boys' camp in New York.
Was on the 1928 and 1932 US Olympic swimming teams. Won gold medal in the 400 Meter Swimming Freestyle at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Also won a bronze medal in the 1500 Meter Freestyle at Amsterdam.
In 1971 Crabbe broke the world swimming record for the over sixties in the 400 meters free style.
Is the only actor who has played Tarzan, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon - the top 3 pulp fiction heroes of the 1930s.
Guest of Honor at "Multicon 70" science-fiction convention (Oklahoma City, USA, June 18-21, 1970)
Graduated from Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Crabbe didn't test for the title role of his most famous film, Flash Gordon (1936/I); in fact, he thought the idea was too far out for movie audiences to accept and would be a box-office flop. He was a fan of the comic strip, however, and was curious to see who would be cast, so he went to the tryouts and stood in the back of the room watching the testing. The series' producer, Henry MacRae, saw him, came over and offered him the part right away. It turned out that MacRae had seen several of Crabbe's previous films and thought he would be perfect for it, but the series was being made by Universal and Crabbe was under contract to Paramount, and MacRae didn't think Paramount would loan him out. MacRae asked him if a deal could be worked out with Paramount would Crabbe do the part, Crabbe said OK, a deal was arranged and Crabbe became Flash Gordon.
His daughter Sande died of anorexia.
Grandson Nick Holt head defensive football coach 2006 at University of Southern California where Buster Crabbe graduated in 1931.
Buster starred in 9 serials altogether for different studios, including:
Tarzan The Fearless (Principal, 1933)
Flash Gordon (Universal, 1936)
Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars (Universal, 1938)
Red Barry (Universal, 1938)
Buck Rogers (Universal, 1939)
Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (Universal, 1940)
The Sea Hound (Columbia, 1947)
Pirates Of The High Seas (Columbia, 1950)
King Of The Congo (Columbia, 1952)
THE SEA HOUND (1947) SERIAL TRAILER!
PIRATES OF THE HIGH SEAS (1950) SERIAL TRAILER!
BUSTER CRABBE HEINZ KETCHUP COMMERCIAL, SHOWN DURING HIS CAPTAIN GALLANT TV SERIES OF THE 50S.
Date of Birth
3 October 1874, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, USA
Date of Death
22 April 1949, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart attack)
Nickname:
Chuck
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Tall, hatchet-faced, dour-speaking character actor in US films from the late 20's through the year of his death.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Takacs
Spouse
Leora Spellman (? - ?)
Trivia
Best remembered as that satanic practitioner of doom, Emperor Ming the Merciless, in the famous 'Flash Gordon' serials of 1936 through 1940.
Grandfather of actor Burr Middleton
Child: Leora (c. 1926)
He was the son of a millionaire and did not have to work, but apparently went into acting because he needed to find a way to express himself.
Those who remember him as the evil, unsmiling, devilish Ming the Merciless from the "Flash Gordon" serials may be surprised to see him singing and dancing (quite well, actually) in the Marx Bros. comedy Duck Soup (1933), but they shouldn't be--he had fairly extensive experience in musicals on the stage before coming to Hollywood.
He was the grandson of Arthur Middleton, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolution.
DUCK SOUP (1933) CLIP! SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT CHARLES DURING THE "WAR" MUSICAL NUMBER.
Date of Birth
25 March 1916, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Date of Death
24 February 1991, Sherman Oaks, California, USA (aftermath of surgery)
Birth Name
Eleanor Lovegren
Mini Biography
Leading lady in 30s and 40s Hollywood low-budgeters. She is best remembered as Dale Arden, the hero's girlfriend, in two of the three "Flash Gordon" serials of that era. ( Carol Hughes portrayed Dale Arden in the third.)
IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Takacs
Mini Biography
Massachusetts-born Jean Rogers had hoped to study art in New York and Europe upon graduation from high school, but her plans changed when she won a national beauty contest in 1933 and was offered a contract by a Hollywood producer. She was soon signed by Warner Bros., and a year later jumped ship to Universal. She began appearing in several of the studios' serials, with 1936's "Flash Gordon" being her most fondly remembered role. Given her delicate blond beauty and the skimpy outfits she wore, it was no wonder she was lusted after so fiercely by archvillain Ming the Merciless (and most of the male audience). Universal took her out of the serial unit and put her in a string of B pictures. Unsatisfied with the way her career was going, and the fact that the studio refused to give her a raise, she left Universal for 20th Century Fox in 1939. Two years later the spunky Rogers left Fox for the same reasons she left Universal, and signed with MGM, where she found the treatment more to her liking. She walked off the Culver City lot in 1943 when studio boss Louis B. Mayer discovered that she planned to get married, and forbade her to do so. Althugh she freelanced over the next few years, nothing much really came of it, and after making "The Second Woman" in 1951, she retired to raise her family.
ACTRESSES OF THE 1930S
