Joe Flynn (US actor)
Encyclopedia
Joseph A. Flynn was an American
character actor
. He was best known for his role in the 1960s ABC
television
situation comedy
, McHale's Navy
. He was also a frequent guest star on 1960s TV shows such as Batman
and appeared in several Walt Disney film
comedies. Later in his career, Flynn worked as a voice actor for Disney animated features.
. Flynn graduated from Youngstown's Rayen School
, attended the University of Notre Dame
for one year, and spent three years in the Army Medical Corps
before moving west, in 1946, to pursue acting and complete his education. He majored in political science at the University of Southern California
.
Players in such productions as Harvey, Antigone, and Pursuit of Happiness. He broke into television in pre-network days and, in 1948, starred in his own situation comedy, Yer Old Buddy.
After appearing in a number of stage plays, Flynn returned to Youngstown, where in 1950, he conducted an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Ohio Senate
as a Republican
.
Following his electoral defeat, he pursued his acting career and appeared in nearly 30 films, including many Disney films. Flynn would later recall watching an audience's reaction to his performance in the 1956 film Indestructible Man
. Although he played a serious part in the horror film
, people laughed, which convinced him that comedy was his forte.
's The Life of Riley
and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
. He appeared at least twice on NBC
's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
. His appearance on March 30, 1961, was a patriotic program set at sea on the United States naval carrier Yorktown
, oddly foreshadowing his later role on McHale's Navy.
In 1961, Flynn was cast as a regular on the first season of NBC's The Joey Bishop Show
, but left early, reportedly because he was stealing too many scenes from Joey Bishop
. That same year, he guest starred on the Peggy Cass
and Jack Weston series The Hathaways
, an unusual sitcom about a suburban Los Angeles
couple that adopts three chimpanzees. He appeared, too, in Edmond O'Brien
's syndicated
1960 crime drama, Johnny Midnight
.
From 1962-1966, Flynn played the irascible Captain Wallace "Wally" Burton Binghamton (also known as "Old Leadbottom") on ABC-TV
's McHale's Navy, in which he became known for his exasperated catch phrases "What is it, What, WHAT, WHAT!?" and "I could just scream!" He also starred in two theatrical films spun off from the series.
In the 1963 comedy Son of Flubber
, Flynn had a cameo as a TV announcer; ironically Flynn would later star in the sequels of the Flubber series as Medfield College
's "Dean Higgins" in a trio of Disney Studio films, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
, Now You See Him, Now You Don't
and The Strongest Man in the World
, his final live-action film. Flynn also starred in The Love Bug
, The Barefoot Executive
, The Million Dollar Duck
and with Don Knotts
in How to Frame a Figg
, and in 1973, The Girl Most Likely to...
, a made for TV movie.
In the early 1970s, Flynn spearheaded a movement on behalf of the Screen Actors Guild
for more equitable distribution of TV residual payments
.
He made a dozen appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from 1972-73. Flynn was a guest panelist on the hit game show series, Match Game '74, on January 17, 1974, in what was his final television appearance. Shortly after completing voice-over work for The Rescuers
(released in 1977), 49-year-old Flynn was discovered by family members in the swimming pool of his Beverly Hills home, the victim of an apparent drowning
accident on July 19, 1974. Although some celebrity friends expressed concern about the circumstances surrounding Flynn's death, authorities found no evidence of foul play. Some believe Flynn suffered a heart attack
while swimming.
He is interred in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
. He was best known for his role in the 1960s ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
, McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11,1962, to August 31, 1966, on the ABC network. The series was filmed in black and white and originated in a one-hour drama called Seven Against the Sea, broadcast on April 3, 1962...
. He was also a frequent guest star on 1960s TV shows such as Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
and appeared in several Walt Disney film
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
comedies. Later in his career, Flynn worked as a voice actor for Disney animated features.
Early years
He was born to a physician in Youngstown, OhioYoungstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County; it also extends into Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
. Flynn graduated from Youngstown's Rayen School
Rayen High School (Youngstown, Ohio)
Rayen High School was a public high school in Youngstown, Ohio, United States. At the time it was closed in 2007, it was of the three oldest high schools in the city...
, attended the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
for one year, and spent three years in the Army Medical Corps
Medical Corps (United States Army)
The Medical Corps of the U.S. Army is a staff corps of the U.S. Army Medical Department consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an MD or a DO degree, at least one year of post-graduate clinical training, and a state medical license.The MC traces its earliest origins...
before moving west, in 1946, to pursue acting and complete his education. He majored in political science at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
.
Early career
Flynn's interest in theater was evident well before his departure from northeastern Ohio. He established himself early on as a ventriloquist and radio disc jockey. Flynn also gained local celebrity as a director by guiding the Canfield (Ohio)Canfield, Ohio
Canfield is an affluent suburban city located in Mahoning County, Ohio,[United States, at the intersection of U.S. Route 224 and State Route 46/U.S. Route 62, about ten miles southwest of Youngstown. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 7,374. It is part of the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman,...
Players in such productions as Harvey, Antigone, and Pursuit of Happiness. He broke into television in pre-network days and, in 1948, starred in his own situation comedy, Yer Old Buddy.
After appearing in a number of stage plays, Flynn returned to Youngstown, where in 1950, he conducted an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Ohio Senate
Ohio Senate
The Ohio State Senate is the upper house of the Ohio General Assembly, the legislative body for the U.S. state of Ohio. There are 33 State Senators. The state legislature meets in the state capital, Columbus. The President of the Senate presides over the body when in session, and is currently Tom...
as a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
.
Following his electoral defeat, he pursued his acting career and appeared in nearly 30 films, including many Disney films. Flynn would later recall watching an audience's reaction to his performance in the 1956 film Indestructible Man
Indestructible Man
Indestructible Man is an American black-and-white science fiction film, an original screenplay by Vy Russell and Sue Dwiggins for producer-director Jack Pollexfen and starring Lon Chaney, Jr.. It was produced independently, and picked up after completion for distribution in the United States by...
. Although he played a serious part in the horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, people laughed, which convinced him that comedy was his forte.
McHale's Navy
Over the years, Flynn achieved recognition in television, earning credits as a regular on William BendixWilliam Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
's The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, a long-run 1950s television series , and a 1958 Dell comic book...
and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American sitcom, airing on ABC from October 3, 1952 to September 3, 1966, starring the real life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television where it continued its success, running on both radio and TV for a couple of years...
. He appeared at least twice on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
. His appearance on March 30, 1961, was a patriotic program set at sea on the United States naval carrier Yorktown
USS Yorktown (CV-10)
USS Yorktown is one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is named after the Battle of Yorktown of the American Revolutionary War, and is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to bear the name...
, oddly foreshadowing his later role on McHale's Navy.
In 1961, Flynn was cast as a regular on the first season of NBC's The Joey Bishop Show
The Joey Bishop Show
The Joey Bishop Show is the title of the following shows which starred American comic actor Joey Bishop:* The Joey Bishop Show , American situation comedy, broadcast by NBC and CBS...
, but left early, reportedly because he was stealing too many scenes from Joey Bishop
Joey Bishop
Joey Bishop was an American entertainer who was perhaps best known for being a member of the "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin...
. That same year, he guest starred on the Peggy Cass
Peggy Cass
Mary Margaret “Peggy” Cass was an American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer.A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Cass became interested in acting as a member of the drama club at Cambridge Latin School; however, she attended all of high school without a speaking part...
and Jack Weston series The Hathaways
The Hathaways
The Hathaways is a 26-episode situation comedy which aired on ABC from October 6, 1961, to March 30, 1962, starring Peggy Cass and Jack Weston as suburban Los Angeles "parents" to a trio of performing chimpanzees. Weston portrays Walter Hathaway, a real estate agent. Cass is his wife Elinore, the...
, an unusual sitcom about a suburban Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
couple that adopts three chimpanzees. He appeared, too, in Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
's syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
1960 crime drama, Johnny Midnight
Johnny Midnight (TV series)
Johnny Midnight is an American crime drama that aired for one season in syndicated from January to December 1960. The series stars Edmond O'Brien as the title character.-Synopsis:...
.
From 1962-1966, Flynn played the irascible Captain Wallace "Wally" Burton Binghamton (also known as "Old Leadbottom") on ABC-TV
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's McHale's Navy, in which he became known for his exasperated catch phrases "What is it, What, WHAT, WHAT!?" and "I could just scream!" He also starred in two theatrical films spun off from the series.
In the 1963 comedy Son of Flubber
Son of Flubber
Son of Flubber is the 1963 black-and-white sequel to the Walt Disney children's movie comedy The Absent-Minded Professor , also starring Fred MacMurray as a scientist who has perfected a high-bouncing substance, Flubber that can levitate an automobile and cause athletes to bounce into the sky...
, Flynn had a cameo as a TV announcer; ironically Flynn would later star in the sequels of the Flubber series as Medfield College
Medfield College
Medfield College is a fictitious university used as the setting for several films by The Walt Disney Company. Among them are the two 'Professor Brainard' movies, The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber ; and the 'Dexter Riley' trilogy: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes , Now You See Him, Now...
's "Dean Higgins" in a trio of Disney Studio films, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is a Disney film from 1969, starring Alan Hewitt, Kurt Russell, Frank Webb, and Joe Flynn. It is released by Buena Vista Distribution Company....
, Now You See Him, Now You Don't
Now You See Him, Now You Don't
Now You See Him, Now You Don't is a 1972 Walt Disney film starring Kurt Russell, a student at the fictional Medfield College. It is the sequel to the 1969 film The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes....
and The Strongest Man in the World
The Strongest Man in the World
The Strongest Man in the World is a 1975 film starring Kurt Russell, still a student in the fictional Medfield College. It is the sequel to the 1972 film Now You See Him, Now You Don't, itself a sequel to the 1969 film, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.-Plot:Medfield College's Dean Higgins is being...
, his final live-action film. Flynn also starred in The Love Bug
The Love Bug
The Love Bug is the first in a series of comedy films made by Walt Disney Productions that starred an anthropomorphic pearl-white, fabric-sunroofed 1963 Volkswagen racing Beetle named Herbie...
, The Barefoot Executive
The Barefoot Executive
The Barefoot Executive is a live-action Disney film released by Buena Vista Distribution in 1971 starring Kurt Russell, Joe Flynn, Wally Cox, Heather North and John Ritter , about a pet chimpanzee, named Raffles, who can predict the popularity of television programs...
, The Million Dollar Duck
The Million Dollar Duck
The Million Dollar Duck is a 1971 Disney comedy film that was directed by Vincent McEveety, and stars Dean Jones, Sandy Duncan and Joe Flynn.-Plot:...
and with Don Knotts
Don Knotts
Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...
in How to Frame a Figg
How to Frame a Figg
How to Frame a Figg is a 1971 Universal comedy about a bungling bookkeeper's assistant, Hollis Alexander Figg in the Dalton city hall, who finds himself framed for embezzlement...
, and in 1973, The Girl Most Likely to...
The Girl Most Likely to...
The Girl Most Likely to... is a black comedy with slight psychological thriller elements written by Joan Rivers and starring Stockard Channing and Edward Asner. The film was released on November 6, 1973 as a made-for-television movie broadcast on the ABC Movie of the Week...
, a made for TV movie.
Later career and death
Throughout his life, Flynn retained a strong connection to his hometown; and from 1969 to the year of his death, he was involved in northeastern Ohio's Kenley Players. He would often return to Youngstown to visit family residing on Elm Street, on the city's north side. In recognition of his contributions to the broadcasting field, Flynn became the ninth recipient of the Ohio Association of Broadcasters Award.In the early 1970s, Flynn spearheaded a movement on behalf of the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
for more equitable distribution of TV residual payments
Residual (entertainment industry)
A residual is a payment made to the creator of performance art for subsequent showings or screenings of the work. A typical use is in the payment of residuals for television reruns. The word is often used in the plural form.-Radio and television:The residual system started in U.S. network radio...
.
He made a dozen appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from 1972-73. Flynn was a guest panelist on the hit game show series, Match Game '74, on January 17, 1974, in what was his final television appearance. Shortly after completing voice-over work for The Rescuers
The Rescuers
The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The 23rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York and shadowing...
(released in 1977), 49-year-old Flynn was discovered by family members in the swimming pool of his Beverly Hills home, the victim of an apparent drowning
Drowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....
accident on July 19, 1974. Although some celebrity friends expressed concern about the circumstances surrounding Flynn's death, authorities found no evidence of foul play. Some believe Flynn suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while swimming.
He is interred in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....
.