Jack Carson (1910-1963) was practically without peer at playing glad-handing heels. A master of the double take, Carson specialized in comedy but occasionally turned in effective dramatic performances in such films as Mildred Pierce (1945), A Star Is Born (1954) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Born in Carmen, Manitoba, Canada, he began in vaudeville and began working in films in 1937 as an extra at RKO. Although gaining attention in small roles at that studio, he came into his own as a character actor only after switching to Warner Bros. in 1941.

After strong supporting performances in the wartime drama Wings for the Eagle (1942) and the classy soap opera The Hard Way (1943), Carson had earned costar status by the time he teamed with his friend Dennis Morgan in a pair of "buddy comedies" in the spirit of the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" movies: Two Guys From Milwaukee (1946) and Two Guys From Texas. All told, Carson and Morgan appeared together in a dozen films. A typical role of the 1940s for Carson came in One More Tomorrow, an adaptation of the Philip Barry play The Animal Kingdom in which he played, as the ads put it, "a weed in the garden of love" shared by Morgan and Ann Sheridan.

Carson appeared with Doris Day in her first three films, Romance on the High Seas (1948), It's a Great Feeling (1949) and My Dream Is Yours (1949). For a time he also dated Day, who wrote fondly of him in her autobiography and credited him with teaching her about film acting.

Carson, who was also active in radio and television, continued making movies throughout the 1950s. His final film was King of the Roaring '20s (1961). Actress Lola Albright was among his four wives.

The films in TCM's birthday tribute to Jack Carson are April Showers (1948), The Hard Way (1943), Wings for the Eagle (1942), One More Tomorrow (1946), Two Guys From Milwaukee (1946), Two Guys From Texas (1948), Romance on the High Seas (1948), and My Dream is Yours (1949).

by Roger Fristoe