William Gargan
William Dennis Gargan (July 17, 1905 – February 16, 1979) was an American film, television and radio actor. He was the 5th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1967,[2] and in 1941, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Joe in They Knew What They Wanted. He acted in decades of movies including parts in Follow the Leader, Rain, Night Flight, Three Sons, Isle of Destiny and many others. The role he was best known for was that of a private detective Martin Kane in the 1949–1952 radio-television series Martin Kane, Private Eye. In television, he was also in 39 episodes of The New Adventures of Martin Kane.
Early years[edit]
Gargan was born on July 17, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York.[3] His parents— Bill and Irene—had seven children, but only Gargan and his brother Ed survived infancy.[4]
His father was a book maker, sometime saloon owner, and gambler. His mother had been a teacher. He graduated from St. Francis Xavier grade school and went to St. James High School in Brooklyn.[4]
Gargan got his first silent movie job at age seven for Vitagraph Studios. He was paid three dollars and eighty-five cents, which is roughly one-hundred twenty dollars in 2023.[4]
Both Gargan and Ed were big kids. By ten, Gargan was hanging out at his father’s bar in the Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Gargan later said that his mother was more straight-laced, a bit of a prude on the surface, but in reality, she ran with dad all her life and his.” Both parents had good senses of humor.[4]
Gargan grew up going to Sea Gate in the summer and fighting on the side of the Irish kids from Bay Ridge against the Italian kids in empty lots. He played baseball and basketball for St. Francis Xavier grade school and St. James High. He shot pool and ditched school in the spring to scale the Ebbets Field fences to watch the Dodgers and their stars of the 1910s — Zack Wheat and Ivan Olson.[4]
When he was fourteen and working as an ice brusher at the Prospect Park skating rink, Gargan met a girl named Mary Elizabeth Kenny. He was so taken by her that he used his broom to knock her down! Gargan recalled that “She climbed right back up, her eyes spitting fire and her mouth not doing badly either. I knew I was in love.”[4]
Kenny lived in Manhattan but spent weekends in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They hung out in Coney Island at Feltman’s, at Lundy’s in Sheepshead Bay, or the Loew’s Metropolitan and the Keith’s Prospect. They were later married in 1928.[4]
Although Gargan never cared much for school, he loved the theater. By high school he was playing in school productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. However, a teacher who’d been out to get Gargan for his comedic behavior made life so miserable during Gargan's senior year that he dropped out.[4]
Gargan became a message runner for a Broad Street brokerage firm, then an investigator for a clothing store, then a private detective with a Wall Street agency until he was fired for losing a tail. He sold Wesson Oil to grocers in Brooklyn making great commissions, sneaking away to watch vaudeville shows. One day the lights went up and Gargan noticed his boss was sitting next to him. “Good show,” Gargan said, “you’re fired,” said his boss.[4]
Stage[edit]
Bill’s brother Edward was an actor.[3] While having lunch with Ed one day at the Lamb’s Club a man named Le Roy Clemens mentioned to Bill that a play he’d written was having tryouts. Bill read a line and was hired, beginning his career in Aloma of the South Seas. They opened in Baltimore in 1924. Gargan was a quick study, learning everyone’s parts as well as the stage manager’s. Within a year he was directing the Philadelphia production of the play. Aloma of the South Seas ran for forty weeks.
Later years[edit]
In 1960 Randy Hale was set to cast Gargan on stage again in The Best Man. He was to play a dying ex-president, but a bout with Laryngitis forced Gargan to get some tests on his throat done. It was throat cancer. Doctors were forced to remove his larynx On November 10, 1960. A breathing stoma was cut into the bottom of his throat so he could breathe. For a time he was depressed, but his friends visited often. Bing Crosby, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Alice Faye, and many others came by. It helped, and so did his self-professed vanity. Gargan couldn’t bear the thought of not speaking again. He made his first vocal lesson through The American Cancer Society in January 1961.[4]
In 1963, he met President Kennedy. He had a meeting set with the President for November 23, 1963. It was one that President Kennedy never made it to. By then his brother Ed was ill with diabetes and emphysema. He passed away in 1964. That year, Gargan was hired by the ACS for their full-time national staff.[4]
Within three years, Gargan mastered esophageal speech to the point that people felt he regained virtually all of his speaking ability and sounded much like he had before his laryngectomy. He refused to use a vocal amplifier and worked tirelessly to be able to speak in both low and high tones. Bill thanked his wife Mary for refusing to let him give up and for his faith that kept him asking why.[4]
In 1965, Mutual of Omaha presented its annual Criss Award to Gargan for "his inspirational self-rehabilitation efforts and his outstanding contributions to established rehabilitation programs."[10]
No longer able to act, he formed William Gargan Productions, making traditional films and television films in Hollywood.[11]
Personal life[edit]
Gargan and his wife, Mary were married in Baltimore on January 19, 1928. They had two sons. Bill (nicknamed Barrie) was born on February 25, 1929. Leslie (named after friend Leslie Howard) was born on June 28, 1933.[4][12]
On February 16, 1979, while on a flight between New York City and San Diego following a tour lecturing for the American Cancer Society, Gargan suffered a heart attack. Upon arrival at San Diego Center City Hospital, he was pronounced dead. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego, California. Gargan was survived by his wife, two sons and three grandchildren.[3]