Glad Tidings.
Joe heard from old friend Lou Valentino (Lou by the way is author of The Films of Lana Turner), who did us an enormous favor by correctly identifying the man pictured above as Frank Albertson.
The photo above is from The Donald Gordon Collection, and unfortunately our man Donald didn’t label all his prints, and in his later years even managed to mislabel a few. That’s why we initially thought this was Red Barry because it was his name that the late Gordon scribbled on the back on the photo we used.
To check out our original misidentification of Albertson, see our July 15 blog Susan Hayward: Cancer Victim, in which we ran his photo, and assured the world that he was Barry (who was a lover of Hayward’s).
I know you’ll be reassured by the news that we corrected that mistake in our Aug. 22 blog, We Admit It. We Goofed. So, Who Is Out Mystery Man?
Three days later, we located an actual photo of Barry, also from The Donald Gordon Collection, and ran with it (That’s Him All Right, The Real ‘Red’ Barry).
But for several weeks were honestly unable to say who our mystery man was. That is, until Lou Valentino’s missive arrived.
Albertson was hardly a household name, but did have some notable credits. He played the role of the innocent playwright in the Marx Brothers film version of Room Service.
Albertson had started in films as a boy, about 14, and worked until his death 50 years later. He’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, as the man who provides the cash later stolen by Janet Leigh. He’s probably best remembered as Sam Wainwright, the “hee-haw” guy in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Our thanks to Lou. Keep keeping us on our toes.
