Who is Henry Travers?
Henry Travers was a veteran of the English stage before emigrating to the U.S. in 1917. He gained more stage experience there on Broadway working with the Theatre Guild, and began his long film career with Reunion in Vienna (1933). Travers' kindly, grandfatherly demeanor became familiar to filmgoers over the next 25 years, especially in films like High Sierra (1941), where he played a kindly but slyly observant uncle, and the generous Mr. Bogardus in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), but it's as the somewhat befuddled angel Clarence Oddbody assigned to James Stewart in the classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) that Travers will forever be known. After a long and successful career, he retired from the screen in 1949, and died in Hollywood in 1965.
Trivia
- Fondly remembered as Clarence, James Stewart's guardian angel ("angel second class"), in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
- Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Holly Terrace entrance, Hall of Inspiration, directly across from W.C. Fields.
- Appears in seven Oscar Best Picture nominees: Dark Victory (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Random Harvest (1942), Madame Curie (1943), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), The Yearling (1946) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), with Mrs. Miniver being the only winner.
- He has appeared in five films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Invisible Man (1933), Ball of Fire (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
- Active on Broadway from 1901-1938 (early in his career credited as Travers Heagerty).