Frank LaRue

A song-and-dance man at the beginning of the 20th century, Frank Herman LaRue billed himself the "Trombone Tramp" and later appeared in vaudeville with his second wife, Elsie Mae Payne. LaRue began turning up in Hollywood films in the very early 1930s and soon emerged as one of filmdom's busiest character actors, specializing in playing pompous bankers and windy politicians in such films as Once in a Lifetime (1932) and The Cat's Paw (1934). By the middle of the decade, he had segued into portraying benign ranchers and/or the heroine's father in B-Westerns, of which he did more than a hundred through the years, his trademark being a booming, authoritative voice. Like so many of his peers, Frank LaRue passed away at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.