Ned Sparks Trailers
Gold Diggers: FDR'S New Deal... Broadway Bound TrailerMagic Town TrailerStage Door Canteen Trailer
Ned Sparks (born Edward Arthur Sparkman, November 19, 1883 – April 3, 1957) was a Canadian-born character actor of the American stage and screen. Sparks was known for his deadpan expression and deep, gravelly voice.
Born in Guelph, Ontario, Sparks left home at age 16 and attempted to work as a gold prospector on the Klondike Gold Rush. After running out of money, he won a spot as a singer on a traveling musical company's tour. At age 19, he returned to Canada and briefly attended a Toronto seminary. After leaving the seminary, he worked for the railroad and worked in theater in Toronto. In 1907, he left Toronto for New York City to try his hand in the Broadway theatre, where he appeared in his first show in 1912.
While working on Broadway, Sparks developed his trademark deadpan expression while portraying the role of a desk clerk in the play Little Miss Brown. His success on the stage soon caught the attention of MGM's Louis B. Mayer who signed Sparks to a six picture deal. Sparks began appearing in numerous silent films before finally making his "talkie" debut in the 1928 film The Big Noise.
In the 1930s, Sparks became known for portraying dour-faced, sarcastic, cigar-chomping characters. He became so associated with the type that, in 1936, The New York Times reported that Sparks had his face insured for USD$100,000 with Lloyd's of London. The market agreed to pay the sum to any photographer who could capture Sparks smiling (Sparks later admitted that the story was a publicity stunt and he was only insured for $10,000). Sparks was also caricatured in cartoons including the Jack-in-the-Box character in the Disney short Broken Toys (1935), and the jester in Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), a hermit crab in both Tex Avery's Fresh Fish (1939) and Bob Clampett's Goofy Groceries (1941), a chicken in Bob Clampett's Slap Happy Pappy (1940), Friz Freleng's Warner Bros. cartoon Malibu Beach Party (1940), and Tex Avery's Hollywood Steps Out (1940). Sparks also voiced the cartoon characters Heckle and Jeckle from 1947 to 1951.
Sparks appeared in ten stage productions on Broadway and over 80 films. He retired from films in 1947, saying that everyone should retire at 65
Most Popular Ned Sparks Trailers
Total trailers found: 73
10 September 1932
A New York gossip columnist feuds with a singer and enjoys the power of the press.
07 October 1947
Rip Smith's opinion-poll business is a failure...until he discovers that the small town of Grandview is statistically identical to the entire country.
27 May 1933
During the Great Depression, all Broadway shows are closed down. A group of desperate unemployed showgirls find hope when a wealthy songwriter invests in a musical starring them, against the wishes of his high society brother.
04 October 1932
Gangsters scheme to get rid of a crusading District Attorney by blackmailing him through his daughter.
28 November 1931
A stock market broker plans to liven up his boring life by taking up piracy on the high seas.
25 August 1939
This is a film about the life of Gus Edwards, a well known vaudeville composer, entertainer, and producer.
08 June 1925
After a stormy six year marriage, Barnaby Powers divorces his wife Richmiel. She returns home, taking their young son Oliver with her.
16 March 1933
In the 1860s, Mary Marlowe defies her father's wishes to marry a British lord and runs away with clerk John Carlton as he heads West to make his fortune.
10 July 1936
Carolyn Martin is a fashion model who hastily marries her boyfriend, engineer Michael Martin. But part of the marriage arrangement requires that Carolyn quit her $50-per-week modeling job to be a full-time housewife; the couple will instead live on Michael’s $35-per-week job.
23 November 1934
A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
21 August 1929
A homeless and destitute violinist joins a combo to bring it success, but has problems with her love life.
21 March 2006
Short documentary about the Great Depression's impact on film, specifically Berkeley musicals.
01 January 1937
American theatrical manager discovers Greta Muller preparing for the Olympics in Switzerland and brings her to Madison Square Garden.
22 August 1927
Michael Lanyard, aka the Lone Wolf, is sailing to America when he meets pretty Eve de Montalais. Eve wants to sneak her valuable necklace through U.
10 May 1926
A Modest Comedy Drama
29 April 1931
Prizefighter Mason loses his opening fight so wife Rose leaves him for Hollywood. Without her around Mason trains and starts winning.
23 August 1937
Satire on radio, built around the supposed feud between bandleader Ben Bernie and journalist Walter Winchell.
15 October 1937
A famous singer and matinée idol helps a pretty young theater usher in her dreams of becoming a singer, but when her career begins to take off and she becomes engaged to a wealthy young man, he realizes he's fallen for her and plots to break up her impending marriage.
22 December 1933
The film tells the story of Sylvia, a French teacher at an all-girl school, who wants to find love. When she hears Bill Williams on the radio, she decides to go visit and thank him.
15 June 1930
Johnny Quinlan is so desperate for a job that he takes a gig as a "bag man" for the mob. Meanwhile, his beleaguered wife has to deal with her bizarre, unemployed, wise-cracking brother and various neighbors while keeping house in their Brooklyn tenement.
11 May 1934
"Private Scandal" is a 1934 American Pre-Code comedy film directed by Ralph Murphy and written by Vera Caspary, Garrett Fort and Bruce Manning.
20 January 1934
Managing Editor Brad Bradshaw refuses to run a story linking the disappearance of Frank Canfield with embezzlement of the bank.
09 May 1930
Beautiful manicurist Hallie Hobart sets her sights on handsome David Stone, the son of wealthy wheat farmer Ezra Stone.
20 June 1927
A hillbilly deacon, who is actually a cardsharp in disguise, becomes involved in a small-town fight game.
12 April 1925
John Douglas, a down-on-his-luck engineer, takes his sweetheart, Sara Deeping, to a play starring Carla King, and he falls in love with the actress.
07 March 1920
Georgiana Chadbourne is a young widow. Her dead husband was such a straight arrow that it bored her, and after a proper enough mourning period, she goes out in search of adventure.
29 March 1935
A Broadway producer discovers new talent in a small Georgia town and brings them to New York for his new show.
29 December 1934
In 1898, composer Sid Barnett manages to get his sweetheart, Adeline the beer-garden singer, to sing the lead in his new Broadway operetta; this infuriates Elysia, the erstwhile star.
15 November 1925
Tom loves Patsy, but she lives in the city while he is every bit the country bumpkin. When an invention of his sells, he decides to take the money and go to the city.
12 March 1938
After being nabbed while trying to stow away on board an ocean liner en route to Hawaii, young Bobbys
31 August 1934
Left only with their yacht after going broke in the Great Depression, a high-society family sets sail for the South Seas.
18 September 1932
An Indiana boy comes into an inheritance and moves to New York City, living it up with his girlfriend until he gets in over his head and someone gets killed.
13 September 1933
Never-wed, poor, rough around the edges Apple Annie has always written to her daughter, Louise, in Spain that she is married and a member of New York's high society.
24 July 1931
The Secret Call is adapted from The Woman, a play by William C. DeMille (brother of Cecil B.) Peggy Shannon plays Wanda Kelly, the daughter of a disgraced politician.
28 December 1931
A Wild West spoof by The Masquers Comedy Club of Hollywood.
22 February 1931
A former All-American football star, now working as a steel mill supervisor in New Jersey, falls in love with the mill owner's wealthy, very spoiled daughter.
01 April 1932
A gang of crooks evade the police by moving their operations to a small town. There the gang's leader, John Madison, encounters a faith healer and uses him to scam the gullible public of funds for a supposed chapel.
24 June 1943
A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of the theater and films appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war.
05 January 1930
An American sailor comes to a seedy banana republic, and finds a fellow yank, a stranded girl, as a saloon singer.
12 September 1930
Chick Evans is a Marine private in Honolulu, Hawaii. He falls for society girl Delphine Witherspoon, and begins to scheme as to how to win her over.
25 September 1934
Heiress Hedda Nillson certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in love with humble chauffeur Eric Landstrom.
23 February 1935
A midwest band leader and his lead singer share a love-hate relationship as they try for success in New York.
28 November 1926
"Twinkletoes" Minasi wants to be a great dancer like her deceased mother. Twink meets Chuck Lightfoot, a noted prizefighter, who falls in love with her at first sight.
23 September 1933
A singer is involved with two women in his life, one a "good" girl and one a "bad" one."
06 June 1941
A woman-hater who inherits a beauty salon gets a new perspective on females after capturing a gang of thieves.
01 August 1920
The plot revolves around a down-on-her-luck woman named Mary whose lack of references makes it impossible for her to gain employment.
11 March 1933
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.
12 December 1936
The son of a stodgy British earl falls in love with the daughter of an American millionaire businessman.
18 December 1933
In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.
20 October 1926
Mistaken identity and female impersonation take place when indigents Billy Winthrop (George K. Arthur) and Ethel Winthrop (Dorothy Reviere) rent a fashionable apartment for a few days in order to impress rich uncle Hiram (Tom Ricketts.
10 August 1930
Margaret Holt and her brother Victor set out to smash a narcotics ring responsible for their father's death.
15 January 1932
A drunken husband tries to sneak in but his wife catches him... and that means trouble!
22 November 1925
Thyra arrives in Chekia to wed its old and ugly king. The Duke falls in love with her. A revolution erupts and the king is assassinated.
25 March 1928
John Stoval, a guard in a New York subway, thinks that Philip Hurd, who owns a concession at Coney Island, would make a good husband for his daughter Sophie.
20 April 1929
A young man bets $10,000 that for 24 hour he can tell nothing but the truth.
31 March 1929
On board a yacht sailing from India to Britain, the owner of the vessel is murdered by one of the passengers.
22 January 1936
A Broadway playboy inherits an almost bankrupt girls' school and tries to save it by a big show.
26 July 1926
The film tells the tale of three ex-cons who finally go straight, through the redemptive power of love.
