Hero of the Month: Slim Summerville
George “Slim” Summerville, was a popular character actor who got his start in Hollywood from a chance meeting with Edgar Kennedy, who intorduced Summerville to Mack Sennett. Impressed with the gangly Summerville, Sennett made him a member of the Keystone Kops. It wasn’t long before Slim was headlining his own shorts and made his feature debut in Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914). Moving to Fox, Summerville also moved from acting to directing. He next relocated to Univrsal where he directed comedy shorts until the coming of sound.
Summerville return to acting was a major role a All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Establishing himself as a character actor, Summerville garnered roles in White Fang (1936), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Tobacco Road (1941). During this time he also starred in a series of domestic comedy shorts with Zasu Pitts and was a wisecracking sidekick to Hoot Gibson in a series of low budget westerns.
Summerville’s only serial was Valley of Vanishing Men (1942), helping star “Wild Bill” Gordon Elliott take down Kenneth MacDonald who is kidnapping local men to use as slave labor in a hidden mine.
Sadly Summerville died suddenly from a stroke in 1946, he was only 53.
