--- name: "Stuart Erwin" canonical: "https://film.one/person/stuart-erwin" roles: ["Actor"] born: "14 February 1903" died: "21 December 1967" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 69 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T00:19:35.369205+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." --- # Stuart Erwin Actor. Born 14 February 1903 in Squaw Valley, California, USA. Died 21 December 1967. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 14 February 1903, Squaw Valley, California, USA - **Died:** 21 December 1967 - **Active:** 1934–1940 - **Also known as:** Stuart Phillip Erwin, Stu Erwin, Стюарт Эрвин - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 69, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 66 (1), 1940s 72 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Erwin, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q944719, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0260020/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/34293 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Our Town*](https://film.one/film/our-town.md) (72) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Stuart Erwin > Stuart Erwin played the same slow, decent, slightly baffled American for four decades, and played him so well that the part was named after him. It is a small talent, honestly used, and worth an evening whenever the film around him is any good. The best joke in *Viva Villa* (1934) is not Wallace Beery's. It belongs to Stuart Erwin, as Jonny Sykes, the American newspaperman trailing the column, who cables home that Villa has taken a town Villa has not yet attacked. Villa, once the dispatch is read to him, decides he had better take it so the paper is not made a liar. We laughed properly at that, and the joke only works because Erwin plays a man who could plausibly have sent the cable without thinking twice. That was his method for forty years: the fool who has no idea he is the cause of anything. He came to films in 1928 with *Mother Knows Best*, and within a few years the studios knew what he was for. The Stu Erwin character, as people came to call it, is the amiable oaf, the yokel, the small-town clerk with a good heart and a slow eye, and he played him through the 1930s and 1940s in whatever shape the picture needed: a hillbilly quarterback in *Pigskin Parade* (1936), a reporter in Mexico, a townsman in *Our Town* (1940). When the films tired of him he took the character to television, as the head of the house in *The Stu Erwin Show* (1950–1955), with his wife June Collyer beside him, and stayed for 130 episodes. He was still doing it for Disney in *Son of Flubber* (1963), as Coach Wilson. The virtue is that he never condescended to the fool. "Put me down as a guy who loves being loony," he told an interviewer in the 1930s, and went on to argue that a dumb character takes more thought than a conventional one. You can see the thought. His slowness is timed; the pause before he understands something is a beat longer than you expect and never two, and he lets the other actor have the reaction. The cost is the obvious one. He was typecast, and a man hired to be baffled cannot easily be hired to be anything else. In *Our Town* he is Howie Newsome, and he is fine, and critics at the time noticed him for playing it straight; our own review did not single him out, because the film's weight sits in the two kitchens and with the narrator, and Erwin is part of the town rather than its point. Start with *Viva Villa*, where Ben Hecht gave him one joke worth the whole performance and he had the sense not to sell it. Then *Our Town*, for the film rather than for him. He was never the reason you chose a picture. He was quite often the reason you did not regret it. ## Biography Stuart Erwin (14 February 1903 – 21 December 1967) was an American actor of stage, film and television. He began acting in college productions in the 1920s, appearing first on stage before making his film debut in *Mother Knows Best* (1928). He appeared in numerous films, including *Viva Villa!* (1934) as Jonny Sykes, *Palooka* (1934) and *Pigskin Parade* (1936), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Erwin transitioned to television in 1950, starring as the lead in the sitcom *Trouble with Father*, later retitled *The Stu Erwin Show*, opposite his wife, actress June Collyer. He also provided a voice in Walt Disney's *Bambi* and appeared in later Disney films such as *Son of Flubber* (1963). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is buried at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, themoviedb.org.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Our Town* (1940), Fi1m 72, as Howie Newsome — [page](https://film.one/film/our-town.md) - *Viva Villa!* (1934), Fi1m 66, as Jonny Sykes — [page](https://film.one/film/viva-villa.md) ## Complete filmography (109) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Shadow Over Elveron* (1968), as Merle - *Green Acres* (1965), series, as Mr. Johnson - *The Big Valley* (1965), series, as Charlie Carter - *The Misadventures of Merlin Jones* (1964), as Police Captain Loomis - *Son of Flubber* (1963), as Coach Wilson - *The Virginian* (1962), series, as Williams - *Straightaway* (1961), series, Actor - *Dr. Kildare* (1961), series, as Dave Lesser - *The Defenders* (1961), series, as Joseph Green - *Peter Loves Mary* (1960), series, Actor - *The Andy Griffith Show* (1960), series, as Tom Silby - *Thriller* (1960), series, as Uncle Florian - *For the Love of Mike* (1960), as Dr. Mills - *Moochie of the Little League* (1959), as Lou Rosson - *The Donna Reed Show* (1958), series, Actor - *Perry Mason* (1957), series, as Clem P. 'Sandy' Sandover, Austin Durrant, Everett Stanton, Henry Simmons - *Snowshoes: A Comedy of People and Horses* (1957), as Sentimental Mousie - *Gunsmoke* (1955), series, as Doc Brown - *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, as George Parsons - *The Stu Erwin Show* (1950), series, as Stu Erwin - *Father Is a Bachelor* (1950), as Constable Pudge Barnham - *Strike It Rich* (1948), as Delbart Lane - *Heading for Heaven* (1947), as Henry Elkins - *Heaven Only Knows* (1947), as Sheriff Matt Bodine - *Killer Dill* (1947), as Johnny 'Killer' Dill - *Doctor Jim* (1947), as Doctor James Gateros - *Pillow to Post* (1945), as Captain Jack Ross - *The Great Mike* (1944), as Jay Spencer - *He Hired the Boss* (1943), as Hubert Theodore Wilkins - *Blondie for Victory* (1942), as Pvt. Herschel Smith - *Drums of the Congo* (1942), as Congo Jack - *The Adventures of Martin Eden* (1942), as Joe Dawson - *The Bride Came C.O.D.* (1941), as Tommy Keenan - *Cracked Nuts* (1941), as Lawrence Trent - *Sandy Gets Her Man* (1940), as Bill Kerry - *A Little Bit of Heaven* (1940), as Cotton - *When the Daltons Rode* (1940), as Ben Dalton - *Our Town* (1940), as Howie Newsome — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/our-town.md) - *The Honeymoon's Over* (1939), as Donald Todd - *Hollywood Cavalcade* (1939), as Pete Tinney - *It Could Happen to You* (1939), as Mackinley Winslow - *Back Door to Heaven* (1939), as Jud Mason - *Passport Husband* (1938), as Henry Cabot - *Three Blind Mice* (1938), as Mike Brophy - *Mr. Boggs Steps Out* (1938), as Oliver Boggs - *Checkers* (1937), as Edgar Connell - *I'll Take Romance* (1937), as 'Pancho' Brown - *Second Honeymoon* (1937), as Leo MacTavish - *Sunday Night at the Trocadero* (1937), as Stuart Erwin - *Small Town Boy* (1937), as Henry Armstrong - *Dance Charlie Dance* (1937), as Andy Tucker - *Slim* (1937), as Aaron "Stumpy" Stump - *Pigskin Parade* (1936), as Amos Dodd - *All American Chump* (1936), as Elmer Lamb - *Women Are Trouble* (1936), as Matt Casey - *Absolute Quiet* (1936), as Oscar "Chubby" Rudd - *Exclusive Story* (1936), as Timothy Aloysius Higgins - *Ceiling Zero* (1936), as Texas Clarke - *After Office Hours* (1935), as Hank Parr - *The Band Plays On* (1934), as Stuffy Wilson - *Have a Heart* (1934), as Gus Anderson - *Chained* (1934), as John L. 'Johnnie' Smith - *The Party's Over* (1934), as Bruce Blakely - *Bachelor Bait* (1934), as William Watts - *Viva Villa!* (1934), as Jonny Sykes — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/viva-villa.md) - *Palooka* (1934), as Joe Palooka - *Going Hollywood* (1933), as Ernest Pratt Baker · Picture Producer - *Day of Reckoning* (1933), as Jerry - *Before Dawn* (1933), as Dwight Wilson - *The Stranger's Return* (1933), as Simon Bates - *Hold Your Man* (1933), as Al Simpson - *International House* (1933), as Tommy Nash - *Under the Tonto Rim* (1933), as Tonto - *He Learned About Women* (1933), as Peter Potter Kendall II - *The Crime of the Century* (1933), as Dan McKee - *Face in the Sky* (1933), as Lucky - *The Big Broadcast* (1932), as Leslie McWhinney - *70,000 Witnesses* (1932), as Man Talking to Connors (uncredited) - *Make Me a Star* (1932), as Merton Gill - *The Misleading Lady* (1932), as Boney - *Strangers in Love* (1932), as Stan Kenney - *Two Kinds of Women* (1932), as Hauser - *Working Girls* (1931), as Pat Kelly - *The Magnificent Lie* (1931), as Elmer Graham - *Up Pops the Devil* (1931), as Stranger - *Dude Ranch* (1931), as Chester Carr - *The Stolen Jools* (1931), as Reporter - *No Limit* (1931), as Ole Olson - *Along Came Youth* (1930), as Ambrose - *Only Saps Work* (1930), as Oscar - *Playboy of Paris* (1930), as Paul Michel - *Love Among the Millionaires* (1930), as Clicker Watson - *Dangerous Nan McGrew* (1930), as Eustace Macy - *Paramount on Parade* (1930), as Marine (The Montmartre Girl) - *Young Eagles* (1930), as Pudge Higgins - *Men Without Women* (1930), as Jenkins - *This Thing Called Love* (1929), as Fred - *The Trespasser* (1929), as Reporter (uncredited) - *Sweetie* (1929), as Axel Bronstrup - *The Cock-Eyed World* (1929), as Buckley - *Happy Days* (1929), as Jig - *The Sophomore* (1929), as Radio Broadcast Technician (uncredited) - *Dangerous Curves* (1929), as Rotarian - *The Exalted Flapper* (1929), as Bimbo Mehaffey - *Thru Different Eyes* (1929), as Reporter - *Speakeasy* (1929), as Cy Williams - *New Year's Eve* (1929), as Landlady's Son - *A Pair of Tights* (1929), as Marion's Boyfriend - *Mother Knows Best* (1928), as Ben ## Gallery - ![Film actor Stuart Erwin. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1930)](https://film.one/media/person/1227713/gallery-6e36057e7dd7.jpg) Film actor Stuart Erwin. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1930) — Unknown photographerUnknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Film_actor_Stuart_Erwin_%28SAYRE_24054%29.jpg/1280px-Film_actor_Stuart_Erwin_%28SAYRE_24054%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Stuart Erwin](https://film.one/media/person/1227713/gallery-273f8f13af74.jpg) Stuart Erwin — Eugene Robert Richee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/1930_Stuart_Erwin_film_actor_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-1930_Stuart_Erwin_film_actor_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Film actor Stuart Erwin. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1930)](https://film.one/media/person/1227713/gallery-5649f791633f.jpg) Film actor Stuart Erwin. Subjects (LCTGM): actors (1930) — Eugene Robert Richee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Film_actor_Stuart_Erwin_%28SAYRE_23992%29.jpg/1280px-Film_actor_Stuart_Erwin_%28SAYRE_23992%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Stuart Erwin](https://film.one/media/person/1227713/gallery-483bd3ad5574.jpg) Stuart Erwin — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1937: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Pigskin Parade* *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/stuart-erwin