Addie McPhail: The Last Mrs. Arbuckle

An interesting if belated new edition to our Stars of Slapstick series, screen comedian Addie McPhail (Addie Dukes, 1905-2003).

McPhail was born in Kentucky, but moved to Chicago with her family at the age of six. She took to the stage (presumably the vaudeville stage) as a teenager, winning several amateur contest. At age 17 (1922) she married tin pan alley songwriter and piano player Lindsay McPhail, who’d released his first jazz record “Zowie” on Okey Records the previous year. In 1924, the pair had a daughter.

In 1925 Addie moved to Hollywood, where she started appearing in comedies for the Stern Brothers the following year. Whether Lindsay moved with her at this time is unknown, but he most definitely was out of the picture by the end of the decade. Addie’s first screen role was a walk-on in the Buster Brown short Buster’s Mix-Up (1926). In 1927 she landed the plum role of Mrs Jones in a series based on the comic strip Keeping Up with the Joneses, in over a dozen shorts through 1928. She was fourth-billed in the William Wyler feature Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? (1928), and can also be seen in such films as Double Whoopee (1929) with Laurel and Hardy, Night Work (1930) with Eddie Quillan, and Midnight Daddies (1930) with Andy Clyde and Eddie Gribbon,Mack Sennett’s last feature as director.

In 1930 was also when McPhail connected with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. She appeared in numerous Lloyd Hamilton shorts directed by Arbuckle that year. She also starred in Beach Pajamas (1931), also directed by Arbuckle, and Arbuckle-directed shorts starring Billy Dooley, Monte Collins, and others. Arbuckle and McPhail subsequently teamed up for a vaudeville tour and got married, culminating in Fatty’s triumphant return to the screen himself in 1932, and then his sudden, tragic and premature death.

Sadly, film comedy shorts were also nearing the end as well. McPhail appeared in a few more starring the likes of Andy Clyde and Billy Gilbert from 1934 through 1936. She was a bit player in a few features including Diamond Jim (1935), Jack Benny’s It’s in the Air (1935), Northwest Passage (1940), and The Cowboy and the Blonde (1941). Still only in her 30s at the time of her retirement, McPhail volunteered for many years at a home for aging actors.

For more on vaudeville historyconsult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on early silent and classic company please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube