CREDITS OF THE IMPORTANT FLASH GORDON CAST MEMBERS

for my commentaries on the individual serials, go to:

FLASH GORDON (1936)

FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS (1938)

FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)

Other FLASH GORDON webpages you might enjoy are:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue04/infocus/introduction3.htm

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue04/infocus/flashgordon.htm

When I started "publishing" these FLASH GORDON commentaries to Internet, I was contacted by a number of people who wanted to know more about the cast, and I wasn't able to be of much help. Subsequently, however, I discovered an Internet database from which I copied the following information.  

This database is linked to a service from which you can order a title if it is available on video. Because some of these films were reissued theatrically under other titles, or the serials were recut into feature length films, or compendia were made of various material (for example, TARZAN), the following titles are not all movies. In the case of Buster Crabbe, some of the titles are of his CAPTAIN GALLANT TV series.

You can see, for instance, that FLASH GORDON (1936) is or was available in various forms, including FLASH GORDON'S SPACE SOLDIERS, FLASH GORDON: ROCKET SHIP and ROCKETSHIP.

I confess to being amazed myself when I looked at these extensive credits. Although Buster Crabbe had a long career in mainly starring roles, he never really made any top of the line product, whereas both Charles Middleton and Richard Alexander, while mainly playing supporting and character roles, appeared in a good many films of importance and lasting fame, such as I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, DUCK SOUP, BELLE STARR, SERGEANT YORK (for Middleton); MY MAN GODFREY (for Jean Rogers) and KING OF KINGS, GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS, TALE OF TWO CITIES, STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR, DU BARRY WAS A LADY, SO BIG (for Alexander). A quick scanning of the titles reveals both Lawson and Rogers appeared in DON'T GET PERSONAL.

Buster Crabbe

Born: Clarence Lindon Crabbe Feb 7, 1908 - Oakland, CA - Died: Apr 23, 1983

Athletic actor Buster Crabbe, born Clarence Crabbe, grew up in Hawaii where he developed into a first-rate swimmer and athlete, going on to win the gold medal in 400-meter swimming at the 1932 Olympics (he broke the record held by another actor-athlete, Johnny Weissmuller). After the Olympics he found work in Hollywood playing Tarzan, branching out from this character to eventually play Flash Gordon, Billy the Kid, and Buck Rogers, among other action heroes. He became enormously popular with young audiences for his appearances in many serials and action flicks of the '30s and '40s, and ultimately starred in over 100 films. He also made Westerns (in the '40s he was teamed with sidekick Al "Fuzzy" St. John), and was on the list for Top Ten Western stars at the box office in 1936. Crabbe went on to star in the '50s TV series Captain Gallant, which also featured his son Cullen "Cuffy" Crabbe. He considerably slowed down his acting output in the '50s and '60s, becoming the athletic director for a resort hotel in the Catskills and investing in the swimming pool business. He also authored Energetics, a book on physical fitness for people over 50. Crabbe returned to the screen once, for a large role in The Alien Dead (1980).

Crabbe set a record by having the lead in more serials (9) than any other actor, including:

TARZAN THE FEARLESS (1933)
FLASH GORDON (1936)
FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS (1938)
RED BARRY (1938)
BUCK ROGERS (1939)
FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
SEA HOUND (1940)
PIRATES OF THE HIGH SEAS (1950)
KING OF THE CONGO (1952)

He set 16 world and American swimming records and won 35 National championships.  In 1971 he set 3 more records in swimming for men in the 60-64 age bracket.

Charles Middleton

Born: Oct 3, 1874 - Elizabethtown, KY - Died: Apr 22, 1949 - Los Angeles, CA

To six decades' worth of filmgoers, Kentucky-born character actor Charles B. Middleton was Ming the Merciless, the megalomaniac ruler of the planet Mongo in three 1930s serials based on Alex Raymond's comic strip Flash Gordon. Beginning his career in circuses and carnivals in the South, Middleton worked in vaudeville and stock companies before his 1927 entree into films. With his hatchet face, bad teeth and rolling-toned voice, Middleton was ideally cast as stern judges, cruel orphanage officials, backwater sheriffs and small-town bigots. Outside of his extensive work in serials and westerns, he was used to best advantage in the films of Laurel and Hardy and Will Rogers. In a far less villainous vein, Charles Middleton was cast as Tom Lincoln, father of the 16th president, in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940); he also portrayed the Great Emancipator himself on several occasions, while in 1937's Stand-In, Middleton was hilariously cast as an unsuccessful actor who dresses like Lincoln in hopes of landing a movie role.

Frank Shannon

Born:  July 27, 1874, Ireland  Died: February 1, 1959 Hollywood, CA

Jean Rogers

Born Eleanor Lovegren on Mar 25, 1916 - Belmont, MA

Died Feb 24, 1991 - Sherman Oaks CA

Blonde, wide-eyed film ingenue Jean Rogers came to Hollywood on the strength of a beauty contest. She rose to stardom as the fetchingly underdressed, ever-imperiled Dale Arden in the popular Universal serial Flash Gordon (1936). She was also costarred in the second Gordon serial, as well as such chapter plays as Ace Drummond (1935) and The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936). From Universal, Jean moved on to 20th Century-Fox, where she was starred in a series of enjoyable B pictures, the best of which (though not her personal favorite) was Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence (1939). She appeared in supporting parts in several MGM films of the 1940s, then freelanced in independent productions. Jean Rogers retired from show business in 1951 upon her marriage to a successful actors' agent.

Richard Alexander

Born: November 19, 1902 - Dallas, TX -  Died: August 9, 1989 - Woodland Hills, CA

Though he started in films around 1924, beefy American character actor Richard Alexander was regarded in studio press releases as a comparative newcomer when he was cast in the 1930 antiwar classic All Quiet on the Western Front. Alexander played Westhus, who early in the film orders novice soldier Lew Ayres to get out of his bunk. After this promising assignment, Alexander was soon consigned to bit parts, usually in roles calling for dumb brute strength; for example, Alexander is the bouncer at the violent Geneva "peace conference" in Wheeler and Woolsey's Diplomaniacs (33). Though familiar for his dozens of villainous roles in westerns, Alexander is best known for his kindly interpretation of the noble Prince Barin in the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. Towards the end of his career, Richard Alexander became active with the executive board of the Screen Actors Guild, representing Hollywood extras.

Priscilla Lawson

Born: Mar 8, 1914 - Indianapolis, IN Died: August 27, 1958 Los Angeles, CA