Charles Farrell

Charles Farrell was a popular leading man of the late silent era and early talkies – (shown here in the 1927 film 7th HEAVEN). Farrell was born on August 9, 1900 in South Walpole, Massachusetts. He began his career as an extra and bit player for Paramount Pictures in films such as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “The Ten Commandments”, and “The Cheat” (all 1923). After signing on with Fox Studios, he was paired with fellow newcomer Janet Gaynor in the romantic drama “7th Heaven”. The film's success meant they went on to star opposite one another in more than a dozen films in the late 1920s and into the talkie era of the early 1930s. In 1934, as his acting career started winding down, he and Ralph Bellamy opened the Palm Springs Racquet Club in Palm Springs, California. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1942, where he worked as an administrative officer with the Fighting Squadron 17 and later spent time on the USS Hornet. A major player in the developing prosperity of Palm Springs in the 1930s through the 1960s, Farrell was elected to the city council in 1946 and served as mayor from 1947 to 1955. He appeared several times on the radio show The Jack Benny Program, including the 1941 episode "Murder at the Racquet Club." He returned to the screen to play Gale Storm's father Vern Albright on “My Little Margie” between 1952 and 1955. In 1956, he starred in The Charles Farrell Show, where he played a fictionalized version of himself as the owner of a Racquet Club. Farrell sold his real-life Racquet club in 1959 for $1.2 million but returned as club operator in 1965 when it was sold again. He became increasingly reclusive in his later until his death from heart failure on May 6, 1990 in Palm Springs.

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