Career
O’Brien appeared with James Cagney in nine feature films, including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Cagney’s last film, Ragtime (1981). The two originally met in 1926 and became lifelong friends. O'Brien began appearing in movies (many times playing Irish cops or priests) in the 1930s, starting with the role of ace reporter Hildy Johnson in the original version of The Front Page in 1931. He appeared in the successful 1946 suspense film, Crack-Up, and played the lead in the boxing film, The Personality Kid.
O’Brien may be best remembered for his role as a police detective opposite George Raft in Some Like It Hot and the title role of a football coach in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), where he gave the speech to “win just one for the Gipper,” referring to recently deceased football player, George Gipp, portrayed in the film by a young Ronald W. Reagan.
O’Brien’s movie career more or less ended in the early 1950s. He still managed to get work in television; O’Brien later claimed to be completely flummoxed about this in his autobiography The Wind At My Back. His close friend, Spencer Tracy, had to fight the studio to get a small role for O’Brien in Tracy’s film The Last Hurrah in 1958.
In his later years, O'Brien worked in television. He was cast in 1956 and 1957 in four episodes of the religion anthology series, Crossroads: in "The Strange Bequest", as the lead character Father Jim in "A Holiday for Father Jim", as Father Edward Sullivan in "Circus Priest", and as Father Patrick O'Neil in "Benediction of Blood".
On April 4, 1957, O'Brien guest starred in the first season of the NBC variety program, The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In the 1960—1961 television season, O’Brien joined Roger Perry in the 34-episode ABCsitcom, Harrigan and Son, about a father-and-son team of lawyers.
O’Brien had a small role as Burt Reynolds’ father in the 1978 comedy film The End, opposite Myrna Loy, cast as Reynolds’ mother.
Read more about this topic: Pat O'Brien (actor)
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“I seemed intent on making it as difficult for myself as possible to pursue my “male” career goal. I not only procrastinated endlessly, submitting my medical school application at the very last minute, but continued to crave a conventional female role even as I moved ahead with my “male” pursuits.”
—Margaret S. Mahler (1897–1985)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)