Jack Oakie

Delightfully brash character actor of the 1930s and 40s, Oakie was famed for his double-takes and gleeful song-and-dance style. A vaudeville performer from the early 1920s, Oakie first hit Broadway in Mistinguette's "Innocent Eyes" (1924). Talkies proved a boon to Oakie, who was signed by Paramount in 1927 and played wisecracking collegiates in several early musicals (notably "Sweetie," 1929, with Helen Kane).

Jack Oakie seemed to turn up in every other film in the 1930s and 40s, usually as the best pal of the leading man (though he himself was the romantic lead in the brilliant "Million Dollar Legs," 1932). Oakie appeared in such films as "Too Much Harmony" and "Alice in Wonderland" (1933), "The Big Broadcast of 1936," "Tin Pan Alley" (1940), and parodying Mussolini in Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" (1940), for which he won an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. Extremely wealthy, Oakie retired in the late 40s, making only occasional cameo appearances.