Henry Travers was a stage veteran who emigrated to the U.S. in 1917 and built further Broadway experience with the Theatre Guild before beginning his film career with Reunion in Vienna (1933). Over the next 25 years he became a familiar screen presence, notably in High Sierra (1941) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). He is best remembered as the angel Clarence Oddbody in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and he retired from the screen in 1949.