Forrester Harvey

Diminuitive Irish actor Forrester Harvey was most often cast as cockney tradesmen, family gardeners and pub hangers-on. He entered films in 1922, but only with the advent of talking pictures were his talents exploited to full advantage. Part subservient, part pugnacious, Harvey became a fixture of Hollywood films set in England, Ireland or Scotland. His better-known film stints included Beamish in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) and Meredith the valet in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford (1940). So ubiquitous was Forrester Harvey that he managed to appear in a film five years after his death! That film was Frank Capra's Riding High (1950), a remake of Broadway Bill (1934) which utilized extensive footage from the earlier film -- including virtually all of Harvey's scenes as a horse trainer. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide