by Hal Erickson
biography
The archetypal screen sourpuss (excluding Ned Sparks, that is), actor Charles A. Sellon was already typecast when he made his first film appearance in 1923. In the first few years of the talkies, Sellon tended to play nondescript character roles in such films as Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Tom Sawyer (1930). He truly came into his own with his unforgettable performance as a cantankerous blind man Mr. Muckle ("Hah! Moved that door again, eh?") in the 1934 W.C. Fields classic It's a Gift (1934). Charles A. Sellon's other memorable mid-'30s roles included the wheelchair-bound, surreptitiously softhearted Uncle Ned in Shirley Temple's Bright Eyes and dour police coroner Doremus in The Casino Murder Case (1935).
