AllMovie

A dapper-looking supporting comic from St. Louis, Otto H. Fries came to films in the early 1910s with a varied background in medicine shows and vaudeville. By 1915, he was with Keystone and a lifelong friendship with Stan Laurel led to appearances in that star comedian's early films for Bronco Billy Anderson. Not surprisingly, Fries later landed at Roach, where he supported not only Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase but also such lesser lights as Max Davidson and James Finlayson. Sound proved no hindrance and Fries would appear in many of Roach's German-language talkies. Often cast as inebriates, Fries played scores of bit parts and walk-ons in grade-A films until the year of his death. A German actor with a similar surname (Otto Friese) acted in British films of the 1950s.