Misplaced Pages

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Michael Whalen" actor – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Michael Whalen
Whalen in 1936
Born	Joseph Kenneth Shovlin (1902-06-30)June 30, 1902 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	April 14, 1974(1974-04-14) (aged 71) Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	San Fernando Mission Cemetery
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1935–1965

Joseph Kenneth Shovlin (June 30, 1902 – April 14, 1974), known professionally as Michael Whalen, was an American actor who starred in motion pictures and television, including Son of a Badman and Wee Willie Winkie.

The young Joe Shovlin was headed for a career in retail; he managed a Woolworth's department store in his native Pennsylvania until he resigned the post in 1925. A visit to New York led to his working on the stage and in radio; he sang on stations WGBS and WABC. He moved to Los Angeles in 1933 to continue his stage career, and was signed as a potential leading man by 20th Century-Fox in 1935. He adopted his mother's maiden name Whalen professionally.

Fox cast Whalen as the juvenile lead in four big-budget "A" pictures, where the darkly handsome actor registered pleasantly but not outstandingly. From then on Fox gave Whalen leading roles in lower-budget "B" pictures, in which he worked steadily. During the 1938-39 season, Whalen starred in three "Roving Reporters" features as crime-busting newspaperman Barney Callahan, but the series didn't catch on (the advertising for these films actually emphasized the supporting character players over Whalen). Whalen left Fox in 1939.

He freelanced at smaller studios for the next few years, before quitting the movies and returning to the Broadway stage. He returned to Hollywood in 1947 and worked in "B" pictures, mostly for producer Robert L. Lippert. With the major studios cutting back on their low-budget productions, many established players found themselves underemployed. Lippert could sign them economically for flat fees, giving his modest productions some luster for the marquee. Whalen also worked in television throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.

Selected filmography

References

1. "Actor Michael Whalen returns to Wyoming Valley for a visit". The Wilkes-Barre Record. August 14, 1939. p. 11.
2. Fitzgerald, Michael G.; Magers, Boyd (2002). Ladies of the Western: Interviews with Fifty-one More Actresses from the Silent Era to the Television Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. McFarland. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-7864-1140-5.
3. Rollins, Peter (2005). Hollywood's West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History. University Press of Kentucky. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-8131-7180-7.
4. Motion Picture Almanac, Terry Ramsaye, ed., Quigley Publications, 1947, p. 416.

External links

• Michael Whalen at IMDb
• Michael Whalen at the Internet Broadway Database

• American male television actors
• Actors from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
• American male film actors
• Male actors from Pennsylvania
• 1902 births
• 1974 deaths
• Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
• 20th-century American male actors