As you head off to see the wizard in “The Wizard of Oz,” here’s something you may not have known about the classic film: That’s one of the Miami Valley’s native sons up there on the screen.
No. not Toto.
Look closely at Dorothy’s Uncle Henry — though most moviegoers today have forgotten about him he was played by none other than Charley Grapewin, who spent most of his early years in Greene County.
The date of his birth is hazy — Greene County records show he was born Charles Ellsworth Grapewin on Dec. 20, 1869, but the well-regarded Film Encyclopedia says he was born in 1875. The county says Grapewin filed a delayed birth certificate in the 1940s.
Either way, he was born in Xenia and grew up there and in Jamestown, spending his first 25 years in the Miami Valley.
Though he was born before film was invented, Grapewin always had a flare for theatrics. According to the Greene County Historical Society, he won an acrobatic roller-skating tournament at age 10 and was hired to perform for the Forepaugh and Samuels Circus.
At 14, he teamed with two female skaters and two male bicycle riders to form an act for the Erwin Brothers Circus in Cincinnati. Eventually, he joined Eddie Silvon and Harry King, forming the famous Silvon Trio, which was heralded as the most dangerous aerial act in the world.
In 1891, at 32, Grapewin gave up the circus for vaudeville, debuting in Little Pack, which opened at Cook’s Opera House in Rochester, N.Y. It was on a vaudeville stage that he met his first wife, Anna Chance. The couple, married 47 years before Anna’s death in 1943, was considered by Hollywood to have the perfect marriage.
In 1929, he went to Hollywood to make his film debut in The Shannons of Broadway, according to Catherine Wilson from the Greene Room of the Greene County Public Library,
The Wizard of Oz wasn’t the only time Grapewin hit the silver screen. He was a character actor during the 1930s and 1940s and appeared in more than 40 movies throughout his career, including “Heroes for Sale” and “The Night of June Thirteenth.”
Most notably, however, he played Grandpa Joad in the 1940 John Ford classic “Grapes of Wrath”, starring Henry Fonda.
And he was chosen, above Walter Brennan, to be Jeeter Lester in the acclaimed “Tobacco Road” in 1941.
But Grapewin almost missed out on his chance for Oz immortality.
MGM announced on Aug. 12, 1938, that Grapewin would play the role of Uncle Henry. Shortly afterward, Grapewin decided to retire instead. The Kansas scenes were to be shot at the end of filming, so there was no rush to replace him.
On Feb. 1, 1939, actor Harlan Briggs was hired to play the role, but he never got the chance. Grapewin decided to postpone his retirement about a week later, and MGM production assistant Arthur Freed hired him back.
Grapewin only worked a week on the film, but that was good enough for eighth billing on the movie posters — below Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton and above the Munchkins.
That retirement was postponed by more than a little. Grapewin kept working until 1951.
In 1945, Grapewin married for a second time to Chicago socialite Loretta McGowan Becker. That marriage ended in divorce after five years.
Grapewin told reporters he had a warm spot in his heart for the Miami Valley. One reason: His mother was born in Xenia. Another reason, he said, was that he had hit his only hole-in-one on a golf course here. “I really do not think I could find enough paper to hold the things I remember about the town …The air around that real old town breathes of real health and long life,” he wrote.
True enough, in Charley’s case. He died on Feb. 2, 1956, at the age of 86.
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