1. William Dennis Gargan was an American film, television and radio actor.
31 Facts About William Gargan
1. 2.
William Gargan was the 5th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1967, and in 1941, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Joe in They Knew What They Wanted.
3.
William Gargan acted in decades of movies including parts in Follow the Leader, Rain, Night Flight, Three Sons, Isle of Destiny and many others.
4.
William Gargan's father was a book maker, sometime saloon owner, and gambler.
5.
William Gargan graduated from St Francis Xavier grade school and went to St James High School in Brooklyn.
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William Gargan got his first silent movie job at age seven for Vitagraph Studios.
7.
William Gargan was paid three dollars and eighty-five cents, which is roughly one-hundred twenty dollars in 2023.
8.
William Gargan later said that his mother was more straight-laced, a bit of a prude on the surface, but in reality, she ran with dad all her life and his.
9.
William Gargan grew up going to Sea Gate in the summer and fighting on the side of the Irish kids from Bay Ridge against the Italian kids in empty lots.
10.
William Gargan played baseball and basketball for St Francis Xavier grade school and St James High.
11.
When he was fourteen and working as an ice brusher at the Prospect Park skating rink, William Gargan met a girl named Mary Elizabeth Kenny.
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William Gargan became a message runner for a Broad Street brokerage firm, then an investigator for a clothing store, then a private detective with a Wall Street agency until he was fired for losing a tail.
13.
William Gargan sold Wesson Oil to grocers in Brooklyn, making great commissions, sneaking away to watch vaudeville shows until he was fired after finding himself sitting next to his boss when the lights came on.
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William Gargan was a quick study, learning everyone's parts as well as the stage manager's.
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William Gargan was cast in a number of stereotypical Irish parts in films playing policemen, priests, reporters, and blustering adventurers.
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In 1935, William Gargan went to England and made several films.
17.
In 1940, William Gargan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Joe, the foreman, in They Knew What They Wanted.
18.
In 1949 William Gargan was in New York City when he phoned acquaintance Frank Folsom of RCA.
19.
William Gargan went to the fifty-third floor of 30 Rockefeller Center.
20.
William Gargan was asked if he'd be interested in playing a pipe-smoking detective, sponsored by the US Tobacco Company.
21.
William Gargan realized early on that there was only so much you could do with a plot in a half-hour, so he made the series a showcase for himself.
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Shortly after, William Gargan signed a deal with Sonny Werblin, then of MCA, to do a new private eye show for NBC.
23.
William Gargan was to play a dying ex-president, but a bout with laryngitis forced Gargan to get some tests on his throat done.
24.
William Gargan made his first vocal lesson through The American Cancer Society in January 1961.
25.
William Gargan had a meeting set with the President for November 23,1963.
26.
That year, William Gargan was hired by the ACS for their full-time national staff.
27.
William Gargan refused to use a vocal amplifier and worked tirelessly to be able to speak in both low and high tones.
28.
William Gargan married his wife Mary in Baltimore on January 19,1928.
29.
On February 16,1979, while on a flight between New York City and San Diego following a tour lecturing for the American Cancer Society, William Gargan suffered a heart attack.
30.
William Gargan was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego, California.
31.
William Gargan was survived by his wife, two sons and three grandchildren.