albatros1 ( 2007-10-04 )

Source: Wikipedia The Internet Encyclopedia allmovie.com

John Litel (December 30, 1892 - February 3, 1972) was a film actor. Wisconsinite Litel was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. When World War I broke out in Europe, Litel didn't feel like waiting until America became officially involved and thus joined the French army, serving valiantly for three years and was twice decorated for bravery. Back in the US after the war, Litel enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began his stage career. In 1929, he started appearing in films. Part of the "Warner Bros. Stock Company" beginning in the 1930s, he appeared in dozens of Warner Bros. films. He settled in Hollywood for keeps in 1937, spending the next three decades portraying a vast array of lawyers, judges, corporate criminals, military officers, and even a lead or two. Litel was a regular in two separate "B"-picture series, playing the respective fathers of Bonita Granville and James Lydon in the Nancy Drew and Henry Aldrich series. On television, John Litel was appropriately ulcerated as the boss of Bob Cummings on the 1953 sitcom My Hero. He appeared in over 200 films including They Drive by Night (1940), Knute Rockne All American (1940), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), The Guilty (1947), Pitfall (1948), Two Dollar Bettor (1951), Scaramouche (1952), and his final film role in Nevada Smith (1966).