Stanley Price

Stanley Price (December 31, 1892 – July 13, 1955) was an American film supporting actor who appeared in over 200 films between 1922 and 1956. He was a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild.

Price was an actor whose artistic career spanned four different decades, from silents through talkies to the advent of color. He debuted in the silent movie Your Best Friend (William Nigh, 1922), sharing starring duties with Vera Gordon and Harry Benham. After that, he became a familiar figure, wearing either cowboy rustler outfits or gangster nice suits, particularly in the cliffhanger serials of the 1930s through the early 1950s.

Usually, he served as the assistant or second-in-command for the brains heavy. He usually wore workmanlike duds, did the physical labor, and often had more brawn than morality. Thus, Price went from one chapter to the next trying desperately to kill the hero with fists, knives, guns, bombs or whatever else happened to be handy at the time. Nevertheless, he was another of these loyal henchmen who always seemed to break down and turn into a gutless weasel and outright coward when confronted by the hero.

Eventually, Price was simply a doctor, barkeep, native, reporter, prosecutor, banker, chemist, reporter, psychotic or nobility member, appearing in about 100 westerns and 39 serials. His flair for comedy also was well represented in the film Road to Morocco, as the blithering idiot in the opening bazaar scene, as well in The Three Stooges films Punchy Cowpunchers, Dopey Dicks and Studio Stoops. He also had at least 18 dialogue director credits for Lippert Studios.

Price was born in Atchison, Kansas. He served in the military in World War I and then acted on stage in the Midwest. He met his wife, Frances Severns, while the two were touring in a production of Abie's Irish Rose. The couple had two children, a son, Stanley Otis, and a daughter, Frances. Price died of a heart attack in Garden Grove, California at age 62. He is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.