Gabriel Dell holds an interesting distinction among the original Dead End Kids, he managed to achieve a succesfull solo career after leaving the group. Cast as the sickly TB in the original play, he, along with Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Bernard Punsley, was brought to Hollywood to repeat his part in the film version of Dead End (1937). It’s success lead to a short lived series of A pictures at Warner Brothers; Crime School (1938), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Hells’ Kitchen (1939), The Made Me a Criminal (1939) and Angel’s Wash Their Faces (1939).
After being dropped by Warners the group split up with Gorcey and Jordan going to Monogram and forming the East Side Kids, and the rest moving over to Universal where they made B pictures as The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys like You’re Not So Tough (1940), Mob Town (1941) and Tough as They Come (1942). Ironically Dell would also appear in some of the East Side Kids films at Monogram, usually as a bad guy, like in Mr. Wise Guy (1942) and Let’s Get Tough (1942).
During this time Dell, as part of the Little Tough Guys appeared in three Universal serials. Junior G-Men (1940) had the gang joining forces with the Junior G-Men to fight Fifth Columnists and search for Halop’s missing father. Sea Raiders (1941) had the boys fighting a master spy targeting cargo ships headed for Allied countries. Their final serial, Junior G-Men of the Air (1942) had the boys fighting a Japanese spy ring on the eve of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, who have kidnapped Halop’s inventor brother.
Dell went into the Merchant Marine during WWII and when he returned to acting was convinced by Gorcey to join his new group, The Bowery Boys. Dell agreed but instead of being a current member of the gang he played a former member who returns from overseas with a French wife, in Spook Busters (1946) and in subsequent films would usually have a different job that played into the the gang’s current adventure, such as a gambler in Bowery Buckaroos (1947), a private detective in Smuggler’s Cove (1948), and a composer in Blues Buster’s (1950).
Tiring of playing an overaged teenager in farces, Dell finally left the group for good and taking acting and dancing lessons at the Actor’s Studio,reemerged in the late fifties as a dependable supporting player on TV and film.
His TV work included appearances on The Seve Allen Show, Ben Casey, The Fugitive, Mannix, McCloud, Barney Miller, Sandford and Son, and probably the strangest show ever made, Hanna Barbara’s live action superhero variety show, Legends of the Superheroes. HIs film work included Earthquake (1974), The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery (1975), Framed (1975) and The Escape Artist (1982).
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