1917-1976
Child actor (and sometime stuntman) Frankie Darro was born Frank Darro Jr. on this day in Chicago. His parents were both circus performers who had their own flying circus act. So, Frank Jr. was born into dare-devilry. Despite that Frankie would go onto be an adventurous child actor, he was born with a fear of heights that meant that it was not easy for him to follow in his parents exact footsteps. Right around the time he was getting the hang of it, his parents divorced and his short-lived circus career came to an end. His talent for this type of performance did not go to waste however. At just the age of 6, he started his acting career, and along with it came stunt work as well. His film debut came fittingly in the adventure drama Judgement of the Storm starring Lloyd Hughes and fellow child actor Lucille Ricksen--the film was released in January of 1924. He would go on to appear in five additional films in 1924 alone, with just his second role taking the title role of Half-a-Dollar Bill--also released in January of 1924. The other notable title of that year is one in which he plays a "kid sidekick" for the first time in the action drama Roaring Rails (21 September 1924) starring Harry Carey. His work in 1925 was even more prolific when he acted in fully twelve films, many of them physically demanding roles. A few of these were major productions; for example he had a role as a prince in Victor Sjöström's Confessions of a Queen, starring Alice Terry. "Three-upping" his number in 1926, he appeared in 15 films; and by the end of the year, he was still only 9 years old! One notable film from that year was his appearance in the Clarence Brown directed Kiki, starring Norma Talmadge--it was one of studio big-wig and producer Joseph Schenck's "presentations" (married to Talmadge at the time, he was the funds behind her company Norma Talmadge Film Corporation). Another was Flesh and the Devil, yet another Clarence Brown film starring heart-throb John Gilbert and Greta Garbo. Of his ten films roles in 1927, a few notable titles among them are : Moulders of Men directed by Ralph Ince and starring Conway Tearle, Little Mickey Grogan his first top billed role, and an uncredited appearance in the Harry Langdon comedy Long Pants directed by Frank Capra. Another top billed role came in the 1928 melodrama The Circus Kid, fittingly a story about a young boy who flees an abusive orphanage to join the circus; the film was directed by George B. Seitz. His first talkie was the 1929 musical The Rainbow Man, starring Eddie Dowling and Marion Nixon. His last film of the decade was yet another Dowling musical: Blaze o' Glory, which was released on the 30th of December, eight days after his 12th brithday. The bulk of his career during the 1920's, though, came as a child side-kick of western star Tom Tyler, who was only 14 years Darro's senior. All the films that they made together between the years 1925 and 1929 were fully silent films. His first film of the 1930's came in a Cagney crime film--The Public Enemy released in May of 1931--in an uncredited role (famously a William Wellman film--he would go on to star in Wellman's Wild Boys of the Road in 1933). It was the beginning of a long career in both supporting "tough guy" roles in both film and on television. Though Darro was certainly handsome and had real acting abilities that allowed him to make the transition to speaking roles, he stopped growing at 5'3" and thus was not regarded as leading man material. The 1930's also brought his first formal credit as a stuntman, though he had been doing stunt work all through the 1920's, especially in the Tyler films. Darro made his television debut in the western series "Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok," in the episode The Slocum Family (airing again, eight days after his birthday--this time his 34th). He had guest roles on a number of series after this, including: Bat Masterson, The Addams Family, Mister Ed, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, Batman, even the pilot episode of The Johnny Carson Show in 1955. Later in life he opened a tavern, in part because he had become a heavy drinker as the result of a heath problem with a pain management issue. This is one of the reasons for his not making many films past the mid-1950's; it kind of sad, then, that his last acting job was "Lester the Drunk" in the mystery film Fugitive Lovers in 1975. Darro's most famous film appearance actually came in a role that he is not known for at all: he was the main actor/operator inside the Robbie The Robot suit in Forbidden Planet in 1956. While visiting family for the holidays and his birthday in 1976, Darro died in Huntingdon Beach, California of a massive heart attack on Christmas Day, just three days after his 59th birthday. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
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