Henry Travers
Biography
British-born 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 Joan Leslie's 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.
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Full filmography
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946) as Clarence
- The Invisible Man (1933) as Dr. Cranley
- Shadow of a Doubt (1943) as Joseph Newton
- Mrs. Miniver (1942) as Mr. Ballard
- Dodge City (1939) as Dr. Irving
- High Sierra (1941) as Pa
- Ball of Fire (1941) as Prof. Jerome
- The Yearling (1946) as Mr. Boyles
- Madame Curie (1943) as Eugene Curie
- Random Harvest (1942) as Dr. Sims
- Dark Victory (1939) as Dr. Parsons
- Dragon Seed (1944) as Third Cousin
- Stanley and Livingstone (1939) as John Kingsley
- The Rains Came (1939) as Rev. Homer Smiley
- The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) as Horace P. Bogardus
- Death Takes a Holiday (1934) as Baron Cesarea
- Edison, the Man (1940) as Ben Els
- James Stewart: A Wonderful Life (1987) as Self (archive footage)
- You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939) as Pop
- Captain Hurricane (1935) as Capt. Ben
- Thrill of a Romance (1945) as Hobart Glenn
- The Naughty Nineties (1945) as Capt. Sam Jackson
- Remember? (1939) as Judge Milliken
- On Borrowed Time (1939) as Dr. Evans