Bradley Barker on AllMovie

A tall, dark-haired supporting player of the 1910s, former stage juvenile Bradley Barker usually appeared as "The Other Man." In films from 1915, Barker would most often be found in films produced by Paramount and its subsidiaries, earning fine reviews for his sterling work in The Moth and the Flame (1915), saving Irene Howley from city slicker Stewart Baird. He was equally prolific in the 1920s, where he also began directing short subjects. In 1929, Barker was awarded a prestigious sound feature in Mother's Boy, an almost too-obvious imitation of the groundbreaking 1927 The Jazz Singer. Instead of rushing to his cantor father's deathbed as Al Jolson had in The Jazz Singer, Irish Mother's Boy Tommy O'Day (Morton Downey) leaves his Broadway show on opening night to serenade his ailing mother (Beryl Mercer), who is restored to health as a consequence. By 1929, however, such stories had become a cliché and Mother's Boy was met with outright hostility. Barker, who has been credited with supplying the growl for MGM's Leo, the lion, returned briefly to short subjects but his career had for all intents and purposes come to an end.