Rags Ragland
Biography
Rags Ragland was a boxer, then a burlesque comedian and then a Broadway performer before ending up in Hollywood to repeat his stage role as the boisterous sailor in Panama Hattie (1942), in which Ann Sothern played on film the part that had been played on Broadway by Ethel Merman. Ragland, typecast as a good-natured oaf with a knack for fracturing the English language, had as his sole movie employer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in some two dozen of whose lighter vehicles he appeared, in the company of such MGM luminaries as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.
Date of Birth 23 August 1905, Louisville, Kentucky
Date of Death 20 August 1946, Los Angeles, California (uremic poisoning)
Filmography
The Hoodlum Saint
1946
as Fishface
Her Highness and the Bellboy
1945
as Albert Weever
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood
1945
as Self
Anchors Aweigh
1945
as Police Sergeant
The Canterville Ghost
1944
as Big Harry Waters
Meet the People
1944
as Mr. Smith
3 Men in White
1944
as Hobart Genet
Whistling in Brooklyn
1943
as Chester Conway
Girl Crazy
1943
as 'Rags'
Du Barry Was a Lady
1943
as Charlie / Dauphin
Whistling in Dixie
1942
as Chester Conway / Sylvester 'Lester' Conway
Panama Hattie
1942
as Rags (as 'Rags' Ragland)
Somewhere I'll Find You
1942
as Charlie
The War Against Mrs. Hadley
1942
as Louie
Maisie Gets Her Man
1942
as Ears Cofflin
Sunday Punch
1942
as 'Killer' Connolly
Born to Sing
1942
as 'Grunt'
Whistling in the Dark
1941
as Sylvester
Ringside Maisie
1941
as Vic
Hats and Dogs
1938
as Rags