William Collier Jr.
Birthday: Born in 1902-02-12 in New York City, New York, USA
Deathday: 1987-02-05
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia William Collier Jr. (born Charles F. Gall Jr., February 12, 1902 – February 5, 1987) was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films. William Collier (nicknamed "Buster") was born in New York City. When his parents divorced, his mother, the actress Paula Marr, remarried the actor William Collier Sr. who adopted Charles (the two did share a resemblance) and gave the boy the new name William Collier Jr. Collier's acting experience in childhood, having first appeared on stage at age seven, helped him to get his first movie role at the age of 14 in The Bugle Call (1916). He went on to become a popular leading man in the 1920s and made the transition from silent into sound film, however he retired from acting in 1935, and in 1937 went to work as a movie producer in England. At the end of the 1940s he returned to America and went on to produce drama series for television. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
TV Credits
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow
Character:
A series about the life, career and works of the movie comedy genius....
Movie Credits
Back Stage
Character: Stagehand
Roscoe and Buster give a bullying Strongman the what-for, but after the performance troupe quits it's up to Fatty and Buster to keep the show going....
Little Caesar
Character: Tony Passa
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?...
The Story of Temple Drake
Character: Toddy Gowan
The coquettish granddaughter of a respected small-town judge is stranded at a bootleggers’ hide-out, subjected to an act of nightmarish sexual violence, and plunged into a criminal underworld that threatens to swallow her up completely....
Free and Easy
Character: Master of Ceremonies
Gopher City Kansas hosts a beauty contest. The winner, Elvira Plunkett, and her mother go to Hollywood. The Chamber of Commerce also provides Elvira with an agent, Gopher City's own Elmer J. Butz. Elmer likes Elvira and the shy Elvira likes him, but Mrs. Plunkett, a formidable woman, has little use for hapless Elmer. On the train west, they meet movie star Larry Mitchell, who takes a shine to Elvira and helps her meet MGM directors once they get to Tinsel Town. Elmer, meanwhile, wants to help El...
Cimarron
Character: The Kid
When the government opens up the Oklahoma territory for settlement, restless Yancey Cravat claims a plot of the free land for himself and moves his family there from Wichita. A newspaperman, lawyer, and just about everything else, Cravat soon becomes a leading citizen of the boom town of Osage. Once the town is established, however, he begins to feel confined once again, and heads for the Cherokee Strip, leaving his family behind. During this and other absences, his wife Sabra must learn to take...
The Mine with the Iron Door
Character: Chico
This epic Western-melodrama was based on the popular novel by Harold Bell Wright. Two old prospectors, Thad Grove and Bob Hill find an infant in the cabin belonging to Sonora Jack, a notorious bandit. The girl, Marta, grows to womanhood....
The Big Gamble
Character: Johnnie Ames
A gambler, hopelessly in debt, agrees to pay off his debt by allowing his creditor to take out a life insurance policy on him and collecting once the one-year suicide clause has elapsed....
Playing with Souls
Character: Matthew Dale Jr.
Amy and Matthew Dale separate and they place their young son, Matthew Jr., in a London boarding school. The boy grows up without knowing his parents, and is taunted by his schoolmates, who doubt the legitimacy of his childhood. By the time he is 20, Matt wants to find out about his parentage, so he travels to Paris, leaving behind his sweetheart, Margo....
The Sunset Derby
Character: Jimmy Burke
After suffering a fall during a race, rider Jimmy Burke loses his nerve. But with the help of his girlfriend Molly Gibson, Jimmy regains his confidence just in time to achieve victory during the Big Race....
The Devil's Cargo
Character: John Joyce
John Joyce arrives in Sacramento with his sister, Martha, and aunt to become the editor of a newspaper. He is determined to clear the town of the low-down mining camp types who are flaunting their freewheeling ways. When Joyce meets Faro Sampson, he falls in love, believing that she is the daughter of a minister. Actually she's the daughter of the man who runs a gambling den, "Square Deal" Sampson....
God Gave Me Twenty Cents
Character: Barney Tapman
The story concerns the misadventures of sailor Steve Doren, who tries his best to support his wife Mary on his piddling income. But like seafaring men everywhere, Steve is constitutionally unreliable, especially when hip-swinging temptress Cassie Lang sashays into view....
Pleasure Mad
Character: Howard Benton
...
The Lady of the Harem
Character: Rafi
Rafi arrives in the city in search of Pervaneh who was taken by the Sultan. He is joined by Hassan the confectioner. Rafi is captured by the Sultan, but Hassan leads a surprise attack on the palace and the lovers are united....
The People's Enemy
Character: Tony Falcone
Money was what gangster Vince M. Falcone wanted most and he did lay hands on millions of dollars by fair means or (mostly) foul. But once he became rich what he craved for was respectability. So why not marry a lovely society lady? And with a young daughter as a bonus Mister Falcone could show off among the creme de la creme. Of course when times got rough he felt free to desert his wife and little girl. Fortunately Taps, a lawyer working for the underworld, will console them both....
The Phantom Express
Character: Bruce Harrington
Railroad foes cause terror on the tracks with the illusion of a ghost train....
Street Scene
Character: Sam Kaplan
The setting is a city block during a sweltering summer, where the residents serve as representatives of the not-very-idealized American melting pot. There is idle chitchat, gossip, jealousy, racism, adultery, and suddenly but not unexpectedly, a murder....
The Donovan Affair
Character: Cornish
Inspector Killian tries to solve a murder case with his assistant Carney....
Her Secret
Character: Johnny Norton
In "Her Secret" (aka "The Girl from Georgia" in the UK in 1934 when shown there)Johnny, the son of a rich-man, is an idling, good-for-nothing loafer, who leads a wild-and-hectic life, flunks out of college, and is disinherited and made to leave home by his father, who has given up on his on in despair. Johnny opens a gas-station in Arizona, where "Waffles,", a girl from Georgia, takes him in hand and employs her own methods of reformation with astonishing and fruitful results....
Broadminded
Character: Jack Hackett
Jack's father lowers the boom when his irresponsible rich-kid ends up in jail after a night of debauchery. The father appoints Ossie, Jack's cousin, as guardian, not realizing that Ossie is just as bad. They set off on a transcontinental trip with mischief on their minds....
Public Stenographer
Character: James 'Jimmy' Martin Jr.
A stenographer who works at a large hotel finds herself caught in the middle of a major swindle....
Dancers in the Dark
Character: Floyd Stevens
A bandleader tries to romance a dancer by sending her boyfriend, a musician, out of town. However, things get complicated when he finds out that a gangster has designs on her too....
Reducing
Character: Johnnie Beasley
Culture shock bombards a woman and her family when they leave their hick town to help her sister out in her big-city beauty parlor....
Stranded
Character: Johnny Nash
When a pretty small-town girl with no talent goes to Hollywood, what could go wrong? She could get Stranded!...
Convoy
Character: John Dodge
A German spy matches wits with-and pitches woo to- an American secret agent...
Speed Demon
Character: Speed Morrow
A mechanic works for his sweetheart's father, who builds racing boats. He begs for and gets the chance to race a new-design boat, but his rival gets him intoxicated before the race and he wrecks the boat. Now he has to make good and show he has the right stuff....
Show of Shows
Character: Performer in 'Bicycle Built for Two' Number (uncredited)
Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East bea...
One Stolen Night
Character: Bob
When his ne'er-do-well brother embezzles the commissary funds of their cavalry unit stationed in the Sudan, a British soldier takes the blame for him. He winds up deserting his post and joining up with a traveling vaudeville troupe. He falls in love with a pretty young woman in one of the show's acts but finds that a local Arab sheik has his own plans for the young girl....
The Lion and the Mouse
Character: Jefferson Ryder
Judge Ross, on the Federal Bench, rules in favor of a large company in litigation before him, unaware that a smaller company in which he owns considerable stock has been subsumed by the larger firm, thus creating the appearance of a conflict of interests. When one of the Judge's enemies plots to ruin the Judge over this apparent improper behavior, Judge Ross's daughter Shirley sets out to prove her father's innocence....
Rain or Shine
Character: Bud Conway
Young Mary Rainey takes the reins of her deceased father's failing circus. With the help of the Inimitable Smiley Johnson, she hopes to bring fortune back to her ragtag band of ragged shoeleather performers....
The Sea Hawk
Character: Marsak
The adventures of Oliver Tressilian, who goes from English gentry to galley slave to captain of a Moorish fighting ship....
The Secret Witness
Character: Arthur Jones aka Casey
A wealthy, cheating husband is found murdered in his penthouse apartment. The police soon arrest a suspect, but the victim's downstairs neighbor believes the man is innocent and sets out to prove who really committed the murder....
The Lighthouse by the Sea
Character: Albert Dorn
A lighthouse keeper and his daughter are in trouble on two fronts--if the authorities find out he is going blind they will remove him, and a gang of liquor-smugglers is trying to destroy the lighthouse so they can land their illegal cargo on shore without being spotted....
Wine of Youth
Character: Max Cooper
Based on a play be Rachel Crothers, WINE OF YOUTH is a solid drama about "the modern young generation" and how they think they know it all. It's also a play about love and marriage....
Women They Talk About
Character: Steve Harrison
Women They Talk About is a part-talkie Vitaphone film, with talking, music and sound effects sequences, starring Irene Rich, directed by Lloyd Bacon and produced and distributed by Warner Bros. It is considered to be a lost film....
The Lucky Lady
Character: Clarke
Convent-bred to assume her position of nobility when the time comes, Princess Antoinette plays hooky from school one day to attend a theatrical performance. Here she meets a handsome young American, and it's love at first sight. Meanwhile, in the Princess' home country, the Prime Minister plots to quell a rebellion by arranging a marriage between Antoinette and the Grand Duke....
Beware of Bachelors
Character: Ed
A young doctor is accused by his pretty wife of paying too much attention to one of his woman patients when she makes a pass at him. Ferris, assuming that her husband is having an affair, decides to have one herself with a perfumer....
Forgotten
Character: Joseph Meyers
Papa Strauss, a widower, is being shifted around from one married-son's home to the other, and is unwelcome at all because his daughter-in-laws' object to his smelly pipe smoking. Finally the family tucks him 'out of sight and out of mind' into a nursing home, with very little 'honor thy father' thought given to it. However, unmarried daughter, Lena, who loves her father dearly, has a bright fiancée, who makes a lot of money off of a patent, and they make a home for him....
Hardboiled Rose
Character: Edward Malo
A Southern Belle must work in a gambling house to pay off her father's debts, which drove him to suicide. She then meets a man who sweeps her off her feet and takes her away from it all....
Tide of Empire
Character: Romauldo Guerrero
California's gold discovery in 1848 draws a "tide of empire" to the area, which becomes ripe for bandits....
The Desired Woman
Character: Lieutenant Larry Trent
The beautiful and cultured Lady Diana Whitney marries Captain Maxwell of the British Army. When he is transferred to the Sahara, life at his remote post becomes one trial after another for Diana. Then Larry Trent, a young lieutenant, arrives to provide a pleasant reminder of days past, but Maxwell, in a jealous rage over their innocent companionship, sends Trent to a distant village....
The Age of Desire
Character: Ranny - Age 21
Janet Loring is a young widow with a young son. She marries millionaire Malcolm Trask, but doesn't tell him about her previous marriage or her son, Ranny. Abandoned to the streets by Janet, Ranny eventually moves in with a bookseller and her granddaughter Margy. As the years go by Janet comes to regret abandoning her son and takes out ads looking for him. Marcio, a vicious blackmailer, sends Ranny to Janet posing as her son, not knowing that the young boy actually is her son. Complications ensue...
New Orleans
Character: Billy Slade
Billy, a jockey, and Jim, an assistant manager of a New Orleans racetrack, are close friends. They become bitter enemies because of Marie, an unprincipled young woman who marries Jim after betraying her first fiancé, Billy, on their wedding day. Marie's extravagance causes Jim to steal money from the office safe and to bet on Billy. Billy wins, but Jim is arrested and sent to jail when Marie neglects to replace the stolen money. Jim serves his term and is reunited with Billy after Marie and her ...
The Wanderer
Character: Jether
Jether, a shepherd, is lured from his home by Tisha, priestess of the goddess Ishtar. He journeys to the city of Babylon, where he lavishes Tisha with gifts and spends his share of his father's wealth on riotous living....
The Bachelor Girl
Character: Jimmy
Joyce (Jacqueline Logan), a beautiful and efficient secretary, does her best to take in hand and reform shiftless stock clerk Jimmy (William Colllier, Jr.), with whom she is in love. Despite her tireless efforts, he continues on his downward path. They separate, only to meet a couple of years later, at which point he vows to make himself worthy of her....
New Movietone Follies of 1930
Character: Conrad Sterling
Minimum plot. Maximum stars of early cinema. Rich young Conrad Sterling (William Collier Jr.) is in love with struggling actress Mary Mason (Miriam Seeger). To prove his love, he hires Mary and the entire company of the show in which she is appearing to entertain his weekend guests at his lavish mansion....
A Royal Romance
Character: John Hale
A young writer, John Hale, inherits a fortune and moves into an alleged-haunted castle with his servant "Rusty." He discovers the 'hauntee' to be Countess von Baden, hiding in a secret chamber with her son, whom the court has awarded to her divorced husband....
The Floating College
Character: George Dewey
College Life - Love - and the big things of life under the light-heartedness of youth....
The College Widow
Character: Billy Bolton
Following another instance of the perennial defeat of the Atwater College football team, President Witherspoon is told that unless better athletes can be induced to come to Atwater, he will be asked to resign. Acting upon the suggestion of Professor Jelicoe, Jane, the professor's beautiful daughter, uses her personal charm to draw noted football stars from neighboring schools by a series of ruses at a vacationing spot. Billy Bolton, son of a financial magnate, falls for Jane and to prove himself...
The Melody Man
Character: Al Tyler
A Viennese composer Von Kemper (John St.Polis), who after murdering both his unfaithful wife and royal lover, flees to America with his young daughter Elsa (Alice Day)....
The College Coquette
Character: Tom Marion
Betty Forrester, a college flirt who is determined to attract Harvey Porter, the school coach, starts playing around to make him jealous. Her roommate, Doris Marlowe, is a naive girl who falls madly in love with Tom, a sophisticated playboy who leads Doris on until he tires of her. At this point Doris pleads with Tom to love her, but he refuses. Betty, afraid for Doris' welfare, tries to save her from Tom by falsely attracting him to herself. Doris, crestfallen, leaves them and accidentally tumb...
File 113
Character: Prosper Botomy
A Parisian cop sets out to solve a sudden series of crimes, including robbery and blackmail. Based on a novel by Émile Gaboriau....
So This Is Love
Character: Jerry McGuire
So This is Love? was another early Frank Capra production for fledgling Columbia Pictures. The hero, dress designer Jerry McGuire (William Collier Jr.), is tired of being considered a wimp. After business hours, Jerry secretly takes boxing lessons, enabling him to knock the stuffings out of his burly rival Spike Mullins (Johnnie Walker). Jerry's newfound pugilistic skills wins him the affections of store clerk Hilda Jensen (Shirley Mason), who's just car-razy about "cave men." Filmed in a fast t...
The Tragedy of Youth
Character: Dick Wayne (as Buster Collier)
Neglected by shallow husband Dick, young bride Paula Wayne seeks male companionship outside the marital nest. She soon finds it in the form of mature lover Frank Gordon. Lost film....
The Good Provider
Character: Izzy Binswanger
A prosperous small-town peddler accedes to his family's wish to move from their secure existence to the uncertainty of New York City. It proves fruitless and eventually his kin sees the error of their ways and return to their true home....
Soul of the Slums
Character: Jerry Harris
A young man, framed and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, is released after serving his stretch and vows to find those responsible for framing him. Meanwhile he sets up a mission in the slums he came from, and falls in love with a girl he meets there....
The Rainmaker
Character: Bobby Robertson
The story of a racetrack tout whose prayers could bring a dry or muddy racetrack, and how he learned to capitalize on those powers. Until the day he lost the power and bet the wrong way....
Just Another Blonde
Character: Scotty
Jimmy O'Connor and Scotty are a couple of New York City gamblers and sharpies who decide to go straight and, since they are such good friends, split 50-50 "even steven" on anything they get or do. Jimmy, a confirmed bachelor, doesn't care for women but Scotty falls in love with Diana O'Sullivan, a Coney Island girl. They decide that Jimmy needs a girlfriend and they opt for Jeannie Cavanaugh. But, following their 50-50 pact, Jimmy, although he has fallen in love with Jeannie, praises Scotty to h...
Backstage
Character: Owen Mackay
Julia, Myrtle, Fanny, and Jane - all chorus girls, after weeks of rehearsing for a show, find themselves stranded when the manager is broke. Evicted for not paying the rent, they try various schemes to get food and lodging....
Eve's Secret
Character: Pierre
Eve's Secret is that she's not the elegant society woman she seems to be. In fact, Eve is an unkempt country girl who's been "transformed," Pygmalion style, by European duke Poltava....
Enemies of Women
Character: Gaston de Lille
The dashing but arrogant Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff has to flee Tsarist Russia after falling into disgrace and settles in Monte Carlo, where he resumes his life of debauchery while World War I ravages the fields of Europe… (Partially lost film; reels 3 and 9 of a total of 11 are missing.)...
Fools Highway
Character: Max Davidson
Mike Kildare, a swaggering youth from New York City's Bowery at the turn of the century, comes to the defense of Mamie Rose, a mender in a secondhand clothing shop, when his own gang of Irish-Americans insult her....
The Broken Gate
Character: Don Lane
In the small farming community of Spring Valley, young Aurora Lane has caused a scandal by bearing a son by townsman Lucius Henderson, who refuses to marry her or even admit that he's the father. Shunned as a "sinful" woman by most of the town, she turns over her son, Don, to be raised by Miss Julia, the town librarian, who tells the boy that she's his "aunt". Don grows up and goes to college, and when he comes back home the town gossips begin a rumor-mongering campaign. When the town policeman ...
The County Fair
Character: Jimmie Dolan
A Kentucky horse owner hires an ex-jockey, who is now working as a waiter, to train his thoroughbred race horse for an upcoming race. However, a gambling ring that doesn't want the horse entering the race has other plans....
The Soul of Youth
Character: Dick Armstrong
Ed Simpson has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused much trouble. He can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets, he finds a friend in newsboy Mike. Mike teaches him how to survive, but inevitably Ed gets hauled into court. The judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician....
Everybody's Sweetheart
Character: John
When the benign headmistress of the county poor farm is discharged and replaced with a tyrant, John and Mary, two orphans who have lived there since infancy, decide to run away. Accompanied by a feeble old corporal from the farm, they are forced to seek refuge at the home of General Phillip Bingham when the old soldier becomes ill. After the corporal's death, the general promises to care for the two waifs. Mary becomes his protegee, and John his gardener. Friction develops between the two newcom...
Secrets of Paris
Character: François
...
The Fighting Gentleman
Character: Jack Duncan - aka The Fighting Gentleman
A young mechanic loses an amateur fight at a carnival, and sets out to train hard to become a professional boxer....
The Heart of Maryland
Character: Lloyd Calvert
...