Clinton Sundberg | |
Birth Name: | Clinton Charles Sundberg |
Birth Date: | 7 December 1903 |
Birth Place: | Appleton, Minnesota, U.S. |
Death Place: | Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
Alma Mater: | Hamline University |
Occupation: | Actor |
Yearsactive: | 1934–1980 |
Clinton Charles Sundberg (December 7, 1903 [some sources say 1906] – December 14, 1981)[1] [2] [3] [4] was an American character actor in film and on stage.
Sundberg was born in Appleton, Minnesota.[5] He graduated from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was active in drama, president of his fraternity, and captain of the tennis team.[6]
Sundberg left teaching English literature for acting, appearing in plays in stock theater in New England.
He appeared in a number of Broadway plays, debuting in Nine Pine Street (1933).[5] His most notable roles were Mr. Kraler in the original 1957 production of The Diary of Anne Frank and Mortimer Brewster (as a replacement) in the 1944 Arsenic and Old Lace.[3]
He became a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he appeared in numerous supporting roles
in films of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He played Mike, the bartender who listens to Judy Garland's character's troubles in Easter Parade. In the 1949 film In the Good Old Summertime, which also starred Garland and Van Johnson, he played a friendly co-worker and confidant of Johnson's character. In Annie Get Your Gun, he played the hotel owner who hires Annie Oakley to enter the shooting contest against Frank Butler.
Sundberg appeared in "The Englishman," a 1957 episode of Have Gun - Will Travel. In 1962, he played the lead guest-starring role of Luther Boardman, a naive but troublesome newspaper publisher who comes to Laramie, Wyoming in "The Man Behind the News", one of the last episodes of the western series Lawman. Other TV appearances include two episodes of Perry Mason: "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito" in 1963
and "The Case of the Scarlet Scandal" in 1966. He also apperared in several TV commercials.[3]