Joseph Michael Kerrigan 16 December 1884 29 April 1964 better known as JM Kerrigan was an Irish character actor Kerrigan was born in Dublin Ireland He worked as a newspaper reporter until 1907 when he joined the famous Abbey Players There he became a stalwart appearing in plays by Lady Gregory William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge for whom he played the role of Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World His first screen appearance was in the silent film Food of Love in 1916 By the 1920s he was appearing on Broadway often in plays by Shakespeare Ibsen and Sheridan He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935 having been recruited along with several other Abbey performers to appear in John Fords The Informer In that film and in Fords The Long Voyage Home he plays similar roles that of a leech who attaches himself to men until they run out of money Perhaps his best known role was in The General Died at Dawn where he plays a character actually named Leach in which he steals scenes from Gary Cooper Madeleine Carroll and William Frawley In it he plays a sinister little petty thief who holding a gun on Cooper says I may be fat but Im agile He had little screen time in films which he starred as minor roles such as the First Drayman in Merely Mary Ann 1931 with Janet Gaynor One of his most recognizable minor roles was in Gone with the Wind 1939 in which he played John Gallegher the seemly jovial mill owner who whips his convict labour in to cooperation He appeared in Walt Disneys 20000 Leagues Under the Sea 1954 the famous film version of Jules Vernes Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in a minor role at the beginning of the film In 1946 he tried breaking into Broadway shows playing the discombobulated leprechaun Jackeen J OMalley in the show Barnaby and Mr OMalley based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip J M Kerrigan died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964 aged 79 Kerrigan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Blvd
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