--- name: "Broderick Crawford" canonical: "https://film.one/person/broderick-crawford" roles: ["Actor"] born: "9 December 1911" died: "26 April 1986" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 75 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T01:58:03.534731+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Broderick Crawford Actor. Born 9 December 1911 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Died 26 April 1986. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 9 December 1911, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA - **Died:** 26 April 1986 - **Active:** 1949–1950 - **Also known as:** William Broderick Crawford - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 75, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1940s 74 (1), 1950s 76 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick_Crawford, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q182349, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002024/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/85895 ## Streaming the US now - **The Roku Channel:** [*Born Yesterday*](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) (76), [*All the King's Men*](https://film.one/film/all-the-kings-men.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Broderick Crawford > Broderick Crawford had a bulldog face and a barking voice, and in *All the King's Men* he put them to work on a whole idea about how power is won. The films that followed mostly asked him to be loud, and he was. Watch what Broderick Crawford does with a prepared speech. For the first stretch of *All the King's Men* (1949) his Willie Stark reads one from the platform, a stiff country man with honest intentions and nothing anyone wants to hear, and the crowd talks over him. Then Sadie Burke tells him, over a bottle, what the men behind him really think, and the next morning he throws the pages away and talks to the farmers as one of them. Crawford does not shout. He leans his whole weight into the words, and a hall of extras turns into a movement. We wanted Willie to win, and it took us a moment to notice we had stopped asking what he would do once he had. That is the performance in one scene: a man who is entirely convincing and not to be trusted, played by an actor who lets us feel both at once. He had been around a while by then. He came out of a vaudeville family, created Lennie in the 1937 Broadway production of *Of Mice and Men*, made his film debut the same year and spent the early 1940s in supporting parts. Willie Stark made him a lead in his late thirties. He followed it with *Born Yesterday* (1950), reprising his stage part of Harry Brock opposite Judy Holliday, and with hard-boiled pictures like *The Mob* (1951), which he went at with some relish. Fritz Lang used him in *Human Desire* (1954) and Fellini in *Il bidone* (1955), and neither of them wanted a nice man. The trouble was the face. A heavy jaw and a bark of a voice are a gift for a demagogue and a trap for nearly everything else, and after the early 1950s the industry mostly asked him for the brute and the slob. The parts got smaller and the pictures got cheaper. Television took him in: *Highway Patrol* (1955–59), for the producer Frederick W. Ziv, gave him Chief Dan Mathews and a second career, and fixed him as the tough cop for good. It kept him working. It did not ask him for much. He had no patience with theory. "I act by having led multiple lives," he said in 1977, and you can see what he meant: nothing in Willie Stark looks studied, and the stiffness of the early scenes is a man who has never been asked to perform, not an actor signalling it. Robert Rossen got the best out of him by giving him someone who changes, and Crawford is at his best while the change is happening. When it stops, in the film's rushed second hour, he is left holding the finished article, which is a smaller thing to play. Start with Willie Stark, the first hour above all. There is a great deal more of Crawford after that, but rarely more to him. ## Biography Broderick Crawford was an American actor, also credited as William Broderick Crawford. He played Willie Stark in the 1949 film *All the King's Men* and Harry Brock in *Born Yesterday* (1950). Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actor and a Golden Globe Award for his performance in *All the King's Men*. He later starred as Dan Mathews in the television series *Highway Patrol* (1955–1959). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Born Yesterday* (1950), Fi1m 76, as Harry Brock — [page](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) - *All the King's Men* (1949), Fi1m 74, as Willie Stark — [page](https://film.one/film/all-the-kings-men.md) ## Complete filmography (131) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Dealers in Death* (1984), as Narrator - *Spaceship* (1983), as Max the Computer (voice) - *Liar's Moon* (1982), as Col. Tubman - *Simon & Simon* (1981), series, Actor - *Death Brings Roses* (1981), as Bartender - *There Goes The Bride* (1980), as Gas Station Attendant - *Harlequin* (1980), as Doc Wheelan - *A Little Romance* (1979), as Brod - *Flying High* (1978), series, Actor - *Vega$* (1978), series, Actor - *The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover* (1977), as J. Edgar Hoover - *Proof of the Man* (1977), as Detective O'Brien - *CHiPs* (1977), series, Actor - *Mayday at 40,000 Feet* (1977), as Marshal Riese - *Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby* (1976), as Holtzman - *Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood* (1976), as Special Effects Man - *City of Angels* (1976), series, as Burton Macklin - *Medical Story* (1975), series, as Joe Hudson - *The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go* (1974), as Parker - *Harry O* (1974), series, Actor - *Paradise* (1974), as Patsy - *The Phantom of Hollywood* (1974), as Capt. O'Neal - *Terror in the Wax Museum* (1973), as Amos Burns - *Banacek* (1972), series, as Gilbert Deretzo - *Embassy* (1972), as Frank Dunniger - *The Adventures of Nick Carter* (1972), as Otis Duncan - *A Tattered Web* (1971), as Willard Edson - *Alias Smith and Jones* (1971), series, Actor - *Night Gallery* (1970), series, as Joseph Fulton - *The Interns* (1970), series, as Dr. Peter Goldstone - *Hell's Bloody Devils* (1970), as Gavin - *Maharlika* (1970), Actor - *Gregorio y su angel* (1970), as Gregorio - *The Challenge* (1970), as Gen. Lewis Meyers - *How Did a Nice Girl Like You Get Into This Business?* (1970), as B.J Hankins - *Ransom Money* (1970), as Inspector Joseph Medford - *Love, American Style* (1969), series, as Francis Adams - *Land of the Giants* (1968), series, as Prof. Gorn - *The Name of the Game* (1968), series, as Harry Ricco, Wolf Lang, Bianchi - *Cimarron Strip* (1967), series, as A-1 Joe Lehigh - *Ironside* (1967), series, Actor - *Red Tomahawk* (1967), as Columbus Smith - *The Vulture* (1966), as Brian F. Stroud - *The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.* (1966), series, as Soyil Irosian - *The Texican* (1966), as Luke Starr - *The Oscar* (1966), as Sheriff - *Mutiny at Fort Sharpe* (1966), as Col. Lenox - *Kid Rodelo* (1966), as Joe Harbin - *Get Smart* (1965), series, as C. Errol Madre - *Up from the Beach* (1965), as MP Major - *The Man from U.N.C.L.E.* (1964), series, as Mark Tenza - *The Rogues* (1964), series, as Amos Cavanaugh - *A House Is Not a Home* (1964), as Harrigan - *The Solid Gold Girl* (1964), as Oakley - *Kraft Suspense Theatre* (1963), series, as Walter 'Pop' Tullett - *Burke's Law* (1963), series, as Carlos Varga, Hamilton Talbert, Tristram Corporal, Milhew Court - *Arrest and Trial* (1963), series, Actor - *No temas a la ley* (1963), as Man in hotel (uncredited) - *The Castilian* (1963), as Don Sancho - *The Virginian* (1962), series, as George Wolfe - *Convicts 4* (1962), as Warden - *King of Diamonds* (1961), series, as John King - *Kraft Mystery Theatre* (1961), series, Actor - *Square of Violence* (1961), as Dr. Stefan Bernardi - *The Revenge of Hercules* (1960), as Re Eurito (King Eurystheus) - *Rawhide* (1959), series, as Jud Hammerklein - *The Decks Ran Red* (1958), as Henry Scott - *Bat Masterson* (1958), series, as Sgt. Foley - *Between Heaven and Hell* (1956), as Capt. 'Waco' Grimes, CO Co.G - *The Fastest Gun Alive* (1956), as Vinnie Harold - *Telephone Time* (1956), series, Actor - *The Swindle* (1955), as Augusto - *Highway Patrol* (1955), series, as Dan Mathews - *Not as a Stranger* (1955), as Dr. Aarons - *Man on a Bus* (1955), as Nahum - *Big House, U.S.A* (1955), as Rollo Lamar - *New York Confidential* (1955), as Charlie Lupo - *Down Three Dark Streets* (1954), as John 'Ripley - *Human Desire* (1954), as Carl Buckley - *Night People* (1954), as Charles Leatherby - *The Last Posse* (1953), as Sheriff John Frazier - *Last of the Comanches* (1953), as Sgt. Matt Trainor - *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, as Scott - *Stop, You're Killing Me* (1952), as Remy Marko - *Lone Star* (1952), as Thomas Craden - *Four Star Playhouse* (1952), series, as Mike Dundee - *Scandal Sheet* (1952), as Mark Chapman - *Schlitz Playhouse of Stars* (1951), series, as Tim, Joe Mitchell - *The Mob* (1951), as Johnny Damico - *Born Yesterday* (1950), as Harry Brock — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/born-yesterday.md) - *Lux Video Theatre* (1950), series, as David, Socko Renard - *Convicted* (1950), as George Knowland - *Cargo to Capetown* (1950), as Johnny Phelan - *All the King's Men* (1949), as Willie Stark — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/all-the-kings-men.md) - *Anna Lucasta* (1949), as Frank - *Night Unto Night* (1949), as C.L. Shawn - *A Kiss in the Dark* (1949), as Mr. Botts - *Bad Men of Tombstone* (1949), as William Morgan - *Sealed Verdict* (1948), as Captain Kinsella - *The Time of Your Life* (1948), as Krupp - *The Flame* (1947), as Ernie Hicks - *Slave Girl* (1947), as Chips Jackson - *Black Angel* (1946), as Captain Flood - *The Runaround* (1946), as Louis Prentiss - *Keeping Fit* (1942), as Brod - Factory Worker - *Sin Town* (1942), as Dude McNair - *Men of Texas* (1942), as Henry Clay Jackson - *Broadway* (1942), as Steve Crandall - *Larceny, Inc.* (1942), as Jug Martin - *Butch Minds the Baby* (1942), as Aloysius 'Butch' Grogan - *North to the Klondike* (1942), as John Thorn - *South of Tahiti* (1941), as Chuck - *Badlands of Dakota* (1941), as Bob Holliday - *Tight Shoes* (1941), as Speedy Miller - *The Black Cat* (1941), as Hubert A. Gilmore 'Gil' Smith - *The Texas Rangers Ride Again* (1940), as Mace Townsley - *Trail of the Vigilantes* (1940), as Swanee - *Seven Sinners* (1940), as Little Ned - *When the Daltons Rode* (1940), as Bob Dalton - *I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby* (1940), as Michael G. 'Sonny' McGann - *Slightly Honorable* (1939), as Russel Sampson - *Eternally Yours* (1939), as Don - *The Real Glory* (1939), as Lieut. Larsen - *Island of Lost Men* (1939), as Tex Ballister - *Beau Geste* (1939), as Hank Miller - *Undercover Doctor* (1939), as Eddie Krator - *Sudden Money* (1939), as Archibald 'Doc' Finney - *Ambush* (1939), as Randall - *Start Cheering* (1938), as Biff Gordon - *Woman Chases Man* (1937), as Hunk - *Whirlpool* (1934), as Guard Outside Paradise Club (uncredited) ## Gallery - ![Broderick Crawford](https://film.one/media/person/1235984/gallery-12090cabe8a3.jpg) Broderick Crawford — Image via TMDB - ![Broderick Crawford](https://film.one/media/person/1235984/gallery-e24bbac4089b.jpg) Broderick Crawford — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 1 won - 1950: Best Actor (won), for *All the King's Men* ### Golden Globes — 1 won - 1950: Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (won), for *All the King's Men* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/broderick-crawford