An uncredited star: The story of “Hollywood’s ugliest man”
Ya wanna make it in Hollywood, kid? Well then, there’s one thing ya need to know… the problem is that no one can agree what that one thing is.
The horrible truth is that if you want to make art of any kind, success is a coin flip. There’s absolutely no way one can guarantee success or even career stability when the question is whether what you do resonates with people on an emotional level. It’s fate. Destiny. Luck. However you want to put it, you have no control over it, no matter how much (or, for that matter, how little) work you put into it. It just happens for some and not for others.
You may be a success because of your skill with dialogue. You might have an incredible look that people just can’t get enough of. In the vast majority of creative cases, you may be a success because your parents were, and you took a number of notes (not to mention contacts) from them.
Sometimes, though, it’s a lot simpler than that. Sometimes you can make a decades-long career with over 300 credits to your name off the back of nothing more than having a really weird face.
It might sound cruel to say, probably because it is, but it’s nothing compared to the way Harry Wilson put it. A working actor from 1928 to his retirement in 1965, he put it a lot more simply than that. He introduced himself with no small amount of pride as “the ugliest man in Hollywood”.
Who was Harry Wilson?
Harry Wilson was born on November 22nd, 1897, in London.
A bout with acromegaly in his young adulthood led to his signature look, causing him to grow to a towering height, his face to grow and distort, and for his voice to drop a few octaves, giving him a gravelly, imposing tone. This bizarre, threatening look, combined with the kind of build that saw him work for a long time as a professional wrestler as a young man, made him a natural for the big screen.
Especially since he came up at a time when noir crime dramas were at their peak, and the most common casting in Hollywood was for thugs, henchmen and brawlers. His intimidating presence made him a natural fit for these roles, and while he was never a star, the man had the kind of consistency in Hollywood that the vast majority of working actors would kill for. He also found his way into some of the biggest films of all time, working on Les Misérables, Some Like It Hot, The Great Dictator and The Wizard of Oz.
He may not have been credited for all of his work, but what he lacked in star power, he more than made up for with sheer goddamn output. By the time of his passing in 1978 at the age of 80, he had amassed a career to be truly proud of. One that could only come from truly accepting himself and seeing the worth in something that other people would be ashamed of. Hopefully, we can all learn from his attitude and find the star within all of us!