Jay C. Flippen

Jay C. Flippen was a famous American actor who often played the role of police officers and criminals in many Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s. At the initial stages of his career, he was a vaudeville singer and a stage actor. He even worked as a radio announcer and was one of the first game show announcers.

He recorded around thirty songs. After performing on stage till the early 20s as a blackface comedian, his first Vitaphone short, “The Ham What Am” produced by Warner Bros., was released in the year 1928. But his film career started properly in the year 1947. When Flippen attained his first stage performance in 1920, entertainers of that time were expected to sing melodiously, act flawlessly and dance but Flippen was no slouch in any of these categories. But still he slowly managed to increase his fan following with a supporting role as C.P.O. Nelson on the 1962 sitcom Ensign O'Toole. He not only acted in Westerns, but also in Comedies, Dramas and Musicals.

Coming to his personal life, he married Cathlyn Young in 1922, but they ended up getting divorced a few years later. He then married a screenwriter, Ruth Brooks Flippen in 1947 and had completed 25 years of marriage successfully. But with flowers come the thorns. In 1964, Flippen suffered a setback due to the amputation of his gangrenous leg. Although it was a major surgery, Flippen did not lose hope and courage; he still continued his work using a wheelchair performing with vim and vinegar in films and on television. Even after the injury, he had the valor to appear on the ABC Comedy western “The Rounders”. Though he did many kinds of roles including comic, yet he mainly gained fame for his acting as a police officer in various films.

His active years of career were from 1928 to 1971. Later at the age of 71, he suffered from aneurysm caused by a rupture of a swollen artery. He died on 3 February 1971, due to complications in a surgery to repair the aneurysm. He was interred in a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.