Vince Barnett: Movies & Box Office

Vince Barnett (July 4, 1902 – August 10, 1977) was an American character actor whose career spanned the golden age of Hollywood and the early years of television, appearing in more than two hundred thirty films between 1930 and 1975. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was the son of renowned vaudeville comedian Luke Barnett, whose reputation for practical jokes earned him the nicknames “Old Man Ribber” and “King of Ribbing,” a legacy that Vince would famously adopt on screen and off. After graduating from Duquesne University Prep School and the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Barnell took to the skies as an amateur pilot in the 1920s, even delivering mail for a brief period before turning his talents to the stage, notably appearing in Earl Carroll’s Vanities on Broadway in 1927. His transition to film began behind the scenes as a screenwriter for two‑reeler comedies, but he quickly moved in front of the camera, becoming known as Hollywood’s “professional ribber,” a role in which he would insult banquet guests in a thick German accent, spill soup, and drop trays for the amusement of celebrities such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Charles Lindbergh. This penchant for mischief landed him prank assignments at Metro‑Goldwyn‑Mayer, including a memorable ruse on studio head Louis B. Mayer and a mock interview with Samuel Goldwyn that was later recounted by David Niven. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Barnett supplied comic relief in a variety of genres, from gangster roles like the “secretary” in Scarface (1932) to supporting parts in film‑noir classics such as The Killers (1946) and westerns like Springfield Rifle (1952). In the post‑war era he transitioned to television, appearing on series such as The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D., where his affable, often inebriated characters became familiar to a new generation. Outside of acting, he ran an eponymous restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica during the 1950s, and even performed a vaudeville monologue at Madison Square Garden in 1972. He married twice—first to Genevieve Meier until her death in 1955, and later to Kit Barnett in 1971—and died of heart disease in Encino, California, on August 10, 1977, leaving behind a legacy of laughter and an indelible mark on Hollywood’s comedic tradition.