The illustrious stage career of character comedian Victor Moore began when he was hired as a supernumerary in 1893. He rose to prominence in the first decade of the 20th century as the lead comic in several vaudeville and musical shows. Moore made his film debut in 1915, starring in three films that year, two of which (Chimmie Fadden and Chimmie Fadden Out West) were directed by up-and-coming Cecil B. DeMille. During the 1920s, Moore perfected his standard stage characterization of a short, chubby, balding milquetoast who responded to every question with a soft, tremulous whine. His best-known stage role was that of nebbishy Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing. Most of Moore's film assignments were in this same bumbling vein, with the notable exception of his superb, heartrending straight portrayal of an elderly "cast-off" in Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (1937). His last movie appearance was a cameo as a double-taking plumber in Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955). Victor Moore's oddest film appearance was as an animated cartoon character in the 1945 Daffy Duck "vehicle" Ain't That Ducky; Moore was delighted with the caricature and offered to supply his own voice free of charge, provided that the animators drew him with just a little more hair.
by Hal Erickson
biography
