harles Grapewin (20 Dec 1869/75 - 2 Feb 1956)

Height: 5' 7½" (1, 71 m)
Wife: Anna Chance (married 1896 - until her dead
in Sep 11. 1943)
Children:  no children
 

On December 20, 1875, in the small town of Xenia, Ohio, Charley Ellsworth Grapewin was born.(Some sources claim 1869). He ran away from home at an age of 10 to begin a lifetime of upward mobility within some form of show business. As a young child he used his ability as a roller skater to gain entry into at least two different circuses. He also began to practice with a group of aerial acrobats and briefly appeared in the last circus as a trapeze artist. He had left the circus in Portland Oregon when offered a job to act in a stock company there.
By 1890 Grapewin was hooked on a theatrical career. From there he was hired for his first professional stage work.
In the early part of his career he met and married his wife the then 15 year old Anna Chance (1896).
He moved between the theater and the circus until the end of the decade, when he landed a role in a New York production of the play Little Puck. He never returned to the circus, although he did lend his skills to vaudeville for a time, writing plays along the way and touring with one of his own productions, The Awakening of Mr. Pipp, for a dozen years.

Grapewin began in silent films at the turn of the century. His very first films were 2 "moving image shorts" made by Frederick S. Armitage; Chimmie Hicks at the Races (aka Above the Limit) and Chimmie Hicks and the Rum Omelet, both shot in September and October of 1900 and released in November of that year, the latter with Anna in it. 

Grapewin began to write stage plays which he sold and acted in. He is credited with writing a play called "The Mismated Pair" which was the first legitimate Vaudevillian sketch without singing or dancing.  His sole Broadway theatre credit was the short-lived play It's Up To You John Henry in 1905.
Then he moved over into the world of motion pictures in the late Twenties, writing and starring in short comedies for the Christie company.
In 1919, Grapewin gave up performing to join General Motors; having invested his money wisely, he retired. As many people did, in late 1929, he and his wife Anna awakened to discover that their net worth -- once two million dollars -- had dropped to about 200.
 

So that meant back to work...and Charley tried his luck in writing (he even dabbled in composing music). He subsequently wrote four books that proved successful enough to earn him some income. e.g. in 1933 he wrote a humerous book entitled 'The Flowing Bowl', it had a colorful drawing of a toilet-paper-stuffed commode on the cover, was only 17 pages long, concerned itself with a fanciful discussion among various bottles of bootleg booze, cocktails shakers, and other liquor-related paraphernalia. The language is decidedly un-political correct by today's standards, with very salty, countrified dialogue. Another exemple being the privately published  'The Town Pump, An American Comedy'(1933)  in collaboration with Anthony Hillyer. 
Luckily the arrival of sound in movies meant that actors who could read lines well,were in great demand. Since he had retired to California, Grapewin decided to give Hollywood a try.

In 1929 he played in 4 shorts with his wife Anna Chance.
As the Thirties progressed, Grapewin could be seen in such memorable films as American Madness (1932), Judge Priest (1934), Alice Adams (1935), The Petrified Forest (1936) and Captains Courageous (1937). 

At the time the Wizard of Oz (1939) was made only The Good Earth (1937) and Ben Hur cost the movie studio more dollars to produce. M-G-M's The Good Earth was a story written by the West Virginia author Pearl S. Buck and the book won a Nobel Prize in literature and also the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in literature.
With many of the prestigious roles played by Charley Grapewin we who love Oz will still best remember the lovable Uncle Henry as a part of the total charm of the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz (1939).  

Between 1940 and 1942 he played Inspector Queen in the unsuccesful series of seven movies based on the Ellery Queen character.

Frequently described as grizzled, cantankerous, wheezy, grumpy and a codger in his grandfatherly roles. Success in films came late in his career (he was 60ish). As we remember him best he was of medium height, stocky build with a mop of white hair, square jawed with squinty eyes. He had a slightly raspy voice and a western drawl which served him well in these roles. 
One of the next films in which Grapewin played a leading role, as Grandpa Joad, another Pulitzer Prize winning book of John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath (1940). He also played Jeeter Lester in the Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road (1941).

During his life span, with everything else he did, he is credited with having made over 100 films. He last role was as Grandpa Reed in  the 1951 When I Grow Up where he crossed paths with Harry Morgan (who later also played Inspector Queen)

He died on February 2, 1956 in Corona, California of natural causes at age 86. Upon the filing of his will it was disclosed that his long time housekeeper was the beneficiary of his Estate. The city where he died named Grapewin Street in his honor.