'' (1922) Born as
Clarence Gordon Prouty in
Boston, Massachusetts, Prouty was a vaudeville performer before becoming a film actor. Mostly appearing in comedies, he occasionally performed a serious character role, as in
A Star is Born (1937). After a significant career in silent films, notably in the
Colleen Moore features
Ella Cinders (1926) and
Orchids and Ermine (1927), Jed Prouty established himself in the new field of talking pictures with a comic role in the wildly successful early musical
The Broadway Melody (1929). His performance in the independent production
Bachelor of Arts (1934), released by
Fox, landed him a contract with Fox, where he appeared with
Will Rogers in
Life Begins at 40 (1934). While at Fox played the lead in the domestic comedy
Every Saturday Night (1936); with the studio pursuing a wide-ranging program of film series, Prouty became the principal character in the
Jones Family film series. Seventeen low-budget family comedies were produced between 1936 and 1940, along with
Spring Byington as Mrs. Jones, for such directors as
Malcolm St. Clair and
Frank R. Strayer. Jed Prouty's appearance in Fox's
Technicolor tribute to silent comedies,
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939) earned him good notices, and on the strength of these he tried to renegotiate his contract. This cost him his berth at Fox, as Ivan Spear of
Boxoffice reported: "20th Century-Fox's newest chapter [of the Jones Family] is marked by the absence, for the first time, of "Pa" -- Jed Prouty. His recent contractual difficulties with the studio made it necessary for writers to eliminate the head of the family from the script, which they did through the expedient of a
nervous breakdown." The film,
On Their Own (1940), concluded the series. Prouty also starred in a couple of short-subject comedies for
RKO Radio Pictures in 1938 and 1939. He continued to play character roles in pictures through 1950, and on television through 1952. ==Partial filmography==