Rags Ragland was a boxer, then a burlesque comedian and then a Broadway performer before ending up in Hollywood to repeat his stage role as the boisterous sailor in Panama Hattie (1942), in which Ann Sothern played on film the part that had been played on Broadway by Ethel Merman. Ragland, typecast as a good-natured oaf with a knack for fracturing the English language, had as his sole movie employer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in some two dozen of whose lighter vehicles he appeared, in the company of such MGM luminaries as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.
Date of Birth 23 August 1905, Louisville, Kentucky
Date of Death 20 August 1946, Los Angeles, California (uremic poisoning)
1946
as Fishface
1945
as Albert Weever
1945
as Himself
1945
as Police Sergeant
1944
as Big Harry Waters
1944
as Mr. Smith
1944
as Hobart Genet
1943
as Chester Conway
1943
as 'Rags'
1943
as Charlie / Dauphin
1942
as Chester Conway / Sylvester 'Lester' Conway
1942
as Rags (as 'Rags' Ragland)
1942
as Charlie
1942
as Louie
1942
as Ears Cofflin
1942
as 'Killer' Connolly
1942
as 'Grunt'
1941
as Sylvester
1941
as Vic