Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O'Brien (
November 11,
1899 â€"
October 15,
1983) was an American movie actor with over 100 screen credits.O'Brien was born
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien to an
Irish American Catholic family in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[
1] He served as an alter boy at
Gesu Church while growing up near 13th & Clybourn streets. O'Brien attended Marquette Academy (a preparatory department which later became
Marquette University High School) with fellow actor
Spencer Tracy, and later attended
Marquette University.
O'Brien appeared with
James Cagney in eight movies including
Angels with Dirty Faces (
1938) and Cagney's last film
Ragtime (
1981). He began appearing in movies (many times playing Irish cops or priests) in the
1930s, starting with the role of ace reporter Hildy Johnson in the original version of
The Front Page in 1931. He memorably appeared in the highly successful
1946 suspense film,
Crack-Up and played the lead in
The Personality Kid (1934). He may be best remembered for his role as a police detective opposite
George Raft in
Some Like It Hot (1959) and the title role as a football coach in
Knute Rockne, All American (
1940), where he gave the speech to "win just one for the Gipper," referring to recently deceased football player
George Gipp, portrayed in the film by a young
Ronald Reagan (the origin of countless later references to President Reagan as "the Gipper"). O'Brien's movie career more or less ended in the early 1950s when he was apparently partially blacklisted but could continue to get work in television; O'Brien later claimed to be completely flummoxed about this in his autobiography
The Wind At My Back. His close friend
Spencer Tracy had to fight the studio to get a small role for O'Brien in Tracy's film
The Last Hurrah in 1958.
Pat O'Brien died from a
heart attack at the age of 84.
*
Pat O'Brien's Gravesite
