Here's to Henry

Most of the world knows character actor Charley Grapewin as Dorothy’s kindly old Uncle Henry. By the time Grapewin was offered the part in The Wizard of Oz, however, he’d already spent nearly forty years in the movie business and was thinking about getting out of it for good.

Charles Ellsworth Grapewin was born December 20, 1869 in the small town of Xenia (pronounced Zeen-yuh), Ohio. He appeared in his first movie, a silent film called Jimmie Hicks at the Races, in 1900. According to the book Cooking in Oz, one of Grapewin’s early stage roles was a part in the original Wizard of Oz musical, written in 1902 by L. Frank Baum.

When casting began for the MGM version almost four decades later, Grapewin was the first choice to play Uncle Henry. He initially turned the role down. Grapewin had already appeared in more than 70 films, including Listen, Darling with Judy Garland the year before, and he had hoped to retire from show business. Several months later, though, Grapewin agreed to postpone his retirement and accepted the role.

Although the filming of the Kansas scenes took just one week (and earned Grapewin a $750 paycheck), he worked to make his portrayal of the old Kansas farmer authentic – right down to his underwear. According to The Making of The Wizard of Oz by Aljean Harmetz, "Grapewin wore the underwear that was standard for Westerns, two-piece balbriggan underwear with five buttons on the side. It was felt that balbriggan underwear added character to the clothes worn over it."

The week of filming must have done Grapewin some good and helped him forget his retirement plans, because he went on to make 26 more movies after Oz. Some of his most memorable roles throughout his long career included Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941), Old Father in The Good Earth (1937), and Gramp Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936), which starred Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard, best known as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. In 1940, Grapewin portrayed Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, a movie that earned seven Academy Award nominations.

Grapewin’s final role was Grandpa Reed in When I Grow Up in 1951. He died February 2, 1956 in Corona, California, and the city later named a street after him. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Articles About Other Oz Characters:

The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton)

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