With a name like Pangborn....

When I returned to caricaturing for fun recently, I wanted to take it easy on myself, and not start right out with well-known, predictably handsome or beautiful Hollywood stars (Correction: Okay, I did start out with an attempt at caricaturing Cary Grant, who frustratingly kept looking a little too much like George Clooney.), so I decided to focus on personalities that were almost living-caricatures to begin with. One of the first caricatures that I attempted was of Franklin Pangborn.


What can you say about someone with a face like this:

Franklin Pangborn was the type of actor born to play fussy, put-upon, continually exasperated characters...very...very...well.

I first became aware of Pangborn as one of Preston Sturges' most frequently used character actors. Sturges always found ways to write memorable scenes for his friends, and one of my favorites is Pangborn's "Chairman of the Reception Comittee" at the beginning of Hail the Conquering Hero.

The scene is masterful in showing an over-organized fuss-budget, slowly losing control over the detailed plans in his head, as various bands and a small boy with a trumpet argue over who gets to play "Hail the Conquering Hero" and "Into the Arms of Mother" for returning "war hero" Eddie Bracken. Naturally, other people pop into the frame to suggest other songs ("Let Me Call You Sweetheart"?)

Of course, every song does get played...all at the same time. Which leaves Pangborn hopping up and down, yelling "Not yet! Not yet!!!", and frantically blowing a whistle.

Apart from Sturges, Pangborn was also very memorable in slightly more subdued roles such as J. Pinkerton Snoopington in The Bank Dick with W.C. Fields, or the Theatrical Producer in Ernst Lubitsch's Design for Living, as well as dozens of other films in the 30's and 40's.

Also, like many men of his time, he was a veteran of World War I.
The idea of Pangborn fighting off a hoarde of bloodthirsty Huns, seems almost incomprehensible. Incomprehensible, but most certainly...funny.

Okay, here's the drawing.