Biography
Victor Potel was an American character actor whose career spanned the silent era to the mid-1940s. Born in Lafayette, Indiana, on 12 October 1889, he made his first film in 1910 for Essanay in Chicago and appeared in dozens of shorts each year, including most of the Broncho Billy series and 80 films as the character Slippery Slim. He also featured in Universal's Snakeville series.
Potel's first sound film was Melody of Love (1928). In the sound era he played numerous small and uncredited comic roles, often due to his height and gawkiness. He became part of Preston Sturges's stock company of actors, appearing in nine of the director's films, including Sullivan's Travels (1941) as the Cameraman, The Lady Eve (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944). He also wrote and directed several shorts and contributed to a handful of features before his death in Hollywood on 8 March 1947.
