
Rags Ragland
Acting
Rags Ragland was a boxer, then a burlesque comedian and then a Broadway performer before ending up in Hollywood to repeat his stage role as the boisterous sailor in Panama Hattie (1942), in which Ann Sothern played on film the part that had been played on Broadway by Ethel Merman. Ragland, typecast as a good-natured oaf with a knack for fracturing the English language, had as his sole movie employer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in some two dozen of whose lighter vehicles he appeared, in the company of such MGM luminaries as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. Date of Birth 23Ā August 1905,Ā Louisville, Kentucky Date of Death 20Ā August 1946,Ā Los Angeles, California (uremic poisoning)
Known for
1946The Hoodlum Saint
Fishface
1945Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood
Self
1945Her Highness and the Bellboy
Albert Weever
1945Anchors Aweigh
Police Sergeant
1944The Canterville Ghost
Big Harry Waters
1944Meet the People
Mr. Smith
19443 Men in White
Hobart Genet
1943Girl Crazy
'Rags'
1943Du Barry Was a Lady
Charlie / Dauphin
1943Whistling in Brooklyn
Chester Conway
1942Whistling in Dixie
Chester Conway / Sylvester 'Lester' Conway
1942Born to Sing
'Grunt'
1942Maisie Gets Her Man
Ears Cofflin
1942Panama Hattie
Rags (as 'Rags' Ragland)
1942Somewhere I'll Find You
Charlie
1942The War Against Mrs. Hadley
Louie
1942Sunday Punch
'Killer' Connolly
1941Whistling in the Dark
Sylvester
1941Ringside Maisie
Vic
1938Hats and Dogs