Hugh O'Connell

Hugh O'Connell was born on August 4, 1898, in New York City.^[2] After being orphaned at an early age, he went to live with a farmer near Green Bay, Wisconsin. He studied business at the Appleton Business College in Wisconsin. After working at a depot of the Northwestern Railroad, he became an usher at a theater in Chicago. The Cal Stewart Stock Company was playing at that venue, and when the troupe went on the road, he went with it.^[3]

O'Connell's experience with the Stewart company led to jobs with stock companies in Juneau, Alaska, the province of Saskatchewan in Canada, and other places.^[3] He left a touring troupe in Seattle, hoping to find better opportunities on the West Coast. When he failed to find such opportunities there and in San Francisco, he went East with another company and acted in "a lot of one-night stands" before joining road companies based in New York.^[4] His Broadway credits include Face Value (1921), Zeno (1923), Cousin Sonia (1925), The Wisdom Tooth (1926), Sure Fire (1926), Ballyhoo (1927), Fog (1927), The Racket (1927), Gentlemen of the Press (1928), Week-End (1929), Once in a Lifetime (1930), Face the Music (1932), A Saturday Night (1933), The Milky Way (1934), Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 (1936), and Run Sheep Run (1938).^[2] An Associated Press review of The Milky Way said it was "the best performance of Hugh O'Connell, who is undoubtedly the funniest actor on the stage ..."^[5]

O'Connell was married and had a son.^[3] He died on January 19, 1943, in Hollywood, California.^[2]