This smiling gentleman with his mother was as famous a Hollywood supporting actor as any in the Thirties and Forties.
He was Jack Oakie and often teamed with Alice Faye and John Payne, as in Tin Pan Alley (1940) and The Great American Broadcast (1941). His usual role was the hero's sidekick and he was not bad at song-and-dance routines either.
On Hollywood Boulevard at that time was Jackson's barbershop, where Oakie said all the Hollywood gossip went on - a shave and a hot towel were very interesting. A newspaper stand and shoe-shine boy were outside the barber's and the Montmartre Cafe was opposite.
-Gordon Dean, St Luke's Road, Brighton
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