# Michael O'Shea (actor)

Edward Francis Michael Patrick Joseph O'Shea (March 17, 1906 – December 4, 1973) was an American actor, who appeared on the stage, in feature films, and television in a career that spanned between the 1940s and early 1970s. He also was a comedian, musician, band leader, and performed on radio.

## Early life

O'Shea was born in Hartford, Connecticut on March 17, 1906, on St. Patrick's Day. He held jobs as a newspaper copy boy, a Western Union messenger, and a tobacco farmer before making his debut in show business.

## Career

O'Shea played drums and the banjo. Much like his character from Lady of Burlesque (1943), Biff Brannigan, O'Shea was a comedian and emcee at speakeasies. He put together his own dance band, "Michael O'Shea and His Stationary Gypsies", and later broke into radio and the "legitimate" stage, where he was billed for a time as "Eddie O'Shea". He worked on radio shows such as Superman, Mr District Attorney, The March of Time and Gangbuster.
O'Shea received acclaim for his performance in the 1942 play The Eve of St. Mark on Broadway. The play was a hit and film producers began approaching O'Shea to do screen tests.

### Early films

O'Shea's work in Eve led to an offer to play Barbara Stanwyck's leading man in the film Lady of Burlesque (1943) for producer Hunt Stromberg, released through United Artists. It was a sizeable hit.
Samuel Bronston offered him the title role in the biopic Jack London (1943), also released through United Artists. The cast included Virginia Mayo who would become O'Shea's second wife.
O'Shea was asked to reprise his stage role in the film version of The Eve of St. Mark (1944), produced by 20th Century Fox. That studio contracted him to make two more films. Fox announced they would make Where Do We Go From Here? with him and Stanley Prager, also in Eve, but it appears not to have been made.
He had the lead role in Man from Frisco (1944), a fictional account of the career of Henry Kaiser for Republic Pictures, directed by Robert Florey. At Fox he made a musical, Something for the Boys (1944), with Carmen Miranda.
O'Shea then went into It's a Pleasure! (1945), playing a hockey star who marries figure skater Sonja Henie, done for International Pictures. Back at Fox he had the lead in a B, Circumstantial Evidence (1945).

### Return to Broadway

O'Shea returned to Broadway with a role in the revival of The Red Mill (1945–47), produced by Hunt Stromberg Jr. which ran for 531 performances.

### Supporting actor in film

When the show finished he returned to films. He had a support part with Mr. District Attorney (1947) at Columbia.
He was Nancy Coleman's leading man in Violence (1947) at Monogram Pictures and played Natty Bumppo in Sam Katzman's version of Last of the Mohicans, Last of the Redmen (1947), with Jon Hall at Columbia.
He had a supporting role in Smart Woman (1948), at Allied Artists, and the lead in Parole, Inc. (1949), for Eagle-Lion Films.
He supported Mickey Rooney in The Big Wheel (1949) at United Artists, but had the lead in The Threat (1949) a "B" for RKO.
O'Shea supported John Payne in Captain China (1950) and Dan Duryea in The Underworld Story (1950). He had a support role in Disc Jockey (1951), then did three films at Fox: Fixed Bayonets (1951) for Sam Fuller, The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) for George Cukor, and Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952).

### Television

After his career in film waned — he was largely out of films by 1952 — he took many roles in television. He acted in TV programs such as The Revlon Mirror Theater, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Damon Runyon Theater, and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars.
He had a supporting part in It Should Happen to You (1954).

### It's a Great Life

He also starred in the NBC sitcom It's a Great Life from 1954 to 1956 as Denny Davis, a former GI trying to find a civilian job. Frances Bavier played his landlady. He was nominated for an Emmy in 1955.
He worked as a panelist on TV shows and filmed a pilot for a TV sitcom with his wife Virginia Mayo, McGarry and His Mouse (1960) but it was not picked up for a series. He guest starred on episodes of Adventures in Paradise, Daktari and Adam-12. In 1964 he returned briefly to New York stage in a production I Was Dancing.

## Personal life

O'Shea was married twice, first to Grace Watts, by whom he had two children. They were divorced in 1947.
He next wed actress Virginia Mayo, in 1947, whom he had met while filming Jack London in 1943. They subsequently appeared on the stock stage together in such productions as George Washington Slept Here, Tunnel of Love and Fiorello!. The couple had one child, Mary Catherine O'Shea, born in 1953. That year O'Shea's first wife sued him for unpaid alimony.
A Republican, O'Shea supported Dwight Eisenhower's campaign in the 1952 presidential election.
In 1957 he pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm, firing two shots into a tractor tire because boys had "hot-rodded" it near his home. In August of 1959 he was arrested after brandishing a pistol in a Philadelphia restaurant following an argument between his wife and another customer over the air conditioning. O'Shea was of the Catholic faith.
O'Shea kept up his bricklayer's union card and was a reserve deputy sheriff in the Ventura County Sheriff's Office He died of a heart attack in Dallas in 1973, about to go on tour with Mayo in a production of Forty Carats.

## Partial filmography

* Lady of Burlesque (1943)
* Jack London (1943)
* Something for the Boys (1944)
* Man from Frisco (1944) – Matt Braddock
* The Eve of St Mark (1944)
* Circumstantial Evidence (1945)
* It's a Pleasure (1945)
* Last of the Redmen (1947)
* Violence (1947)
* Mr. District Attorney (1947)
* Parole, Inc. (1948)
* Smart Woman (1948)
* The Threat (1949)
* The Big Wheel (1949)
* The Underworld Story (1950)
* Captain China (1950)
* The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951)
* Fixed Bayonets! (1951)
* Disk Jockey (1951)
* Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952)
* It Should Happen to You (1954)