Jay C. Flippen

Jay C. Flippen (born March 6, 1899 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA; died February 3, 1971 in Los Angeles) is best remembered as a gruff-faced actor usually playing a police officer or weary criminal in many movies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Flippen was already an established vaudeville singer and stage actor, after being discovered by famed African-American comedian Bert Williams in the 1920s, before shifting his focus to films. At one time he was a radio announcer for New York Yankees games and was one of the first game show announcers. (Between 1924 and 1929, Flippen recorded over 30 songs for Columbia, Perfect and Brunswick). He called himself "The Ham What Am," and performed occasionally in blackface.

He worked quite a few times with director Anthony Mann, also with Nicholas Ray and Stanley Kubrick.

His films include "They Live by Night" (1948), "Winchester '73" with Jimmy Stewart (1950), "Flying Leathernecks" with John Wayne (1951), "Bend of the River" again with Jimmy Stewart (1952), "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando (1953), "Thunder Bay" again with Jimmy Stewart (1953), "Oklahoma!" (1955) (his only singing role), "The Far Country" again with Jimmy Stewart and with Walter Brennan (1955), "Strategic Air Command" again with Jimmy Stewart (1955), "The Killing" (1956), "Night Passage" again with Jimmy Stewart and with Audie Murphy (1957), "Jet Pilot" again with John Wayne (1957), "Firecreek" again with Jimmy Stewart and with Henry Fonda (1968), and "Hellfighters" (1968) again with John Wayne. He had a cameo role in 1962's "How The West Was Won".

Flippen also appeared on television, most notably as Chief Petty Officer Home Nelson on the 1962-1963 sitcom Ensign O'Toole, starring Dean Jones. Later in life he continued acting even though he used a wheelchair after an amputation.

He was married for twenty-five years to screenwriter Ruth Brooks Flippen.

Jay Flippen died at the age of seventy-two of an aneurysm caused by a swollen artery while in surgery. He is buried in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

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