Early life Flaherty was born
Edmund Joseph Flaherty in Washington, D.C.; the son of Mary Rose Ella (
née Wilson) and Michael Joseph Flaherty. He was the older brother of writer Vincent X. Flaherty. Flaherty had
Irish ancestry. After his professional athletic career ended, he went into the music publishing business with the legendary
DeSylva, Brown and Henderson during the time of Mayor
Jimmy Walker in New York.
Acting career Flaherty relocated to Hollywood to take a position as a producer at
20th Century Fox for the owner
Joseph P. Kennedy when the
Great Depression began. Subsequently, he found work as an actor and technical advisor in over 200 motion pictures. Flaherty can be seen in roles both large and small in films such as
Death on the Diamond (1934),
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935),
Sergeant York (1941),
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942),
The Pride of the Yankees (1942),
It Happened in Flatbush (1942), and a bit appearance as a bewildered Marine in
Stage Door Canteen. In 1943, he was commissioned in the
U.S. Marine Corps as a
captain. He returned to the Corps for the
Korean War and finished his service as a
major. He resumed his acting career after the war with
The Stratton Story (1949, as the Western All-Stars coach),
The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and
The Winning Team (1952, as legendary umpire
Bill Klem). He was given the task of making
William Bendix look, move and act like
Babe Ruth in
The Babe Ruth Story, and
Gary Cooper to pitch, look, move and act like
Lou Gehrig in
Pride of the Yankees. Outside the realm of baseball, Flaherty was usually cast in blunt, muscle-bound roles, notably
Fredric March's taciturn male nurse "Cuddles" in
A Star is Born (1937). One of Flaherty's most unusual roles was in
Wheeler & Woolsey's
Off Again, On Again (1937), in which his character finds his wife (played by actress
Patricia Wilder) in a compromising position with Bert Wheeler; he does not pummel the hapless Wheeler as expected, but instead meekly apologizes for his wife's flirtatiousness.
Personal life Flaherty was married twice. His first wife was Dorothy Fiske. The couple had one child, Edmund Flaherty, Jr. who was born in 1919 and died in 1995, by which time his name had been changed to Edmund Graham. On January 19, 1929, Flaherty married Dorothea Xaviera Fugazy, daughter of boxing promoter Jack Fugazy aka Humbert Fugazy. They had two children, Patrick Joseph Flaherty and Frances X. Flaherty Knox. Flaherty died on December 4, 1970, in New York City of a
heart attack. He was interred at
Long Island National Cemetery on December 7. ==Filmography==