Max Wagner
Max Wagner (November 28, 1901 – November 16, 1975) was a Mexican-born American film actor who specialized in playing small parts such as thugs, gangsters, sailors, henchmen, bodyguards, cab drivers and moving men, appearing more than 400 films in his career, most without receiving screen credit. Newspaper gossip columnists noted his rise from playing "Gangster #4", with no lines, and not carrying a gun, to "Gangster #2", with both lines and a gun.
Wagner was one of five children, all boys, of William Wallace Wagner, a railroad conductor, and Edith Wagner, a writer who provided dispatches for the Christian Science Monitor during the Mexican Revolution. When he was 10 years old, his father was killed by rebels and the family moved to Salinas, California, where he met John Steinbeck, who became a lifelong friend. Steinback based the character of the boy in his novel The Red Pony on Wagner.
Under the name "Max Baron", Wagner acted in many Spanish-language versions of English-language films, which studios made as a matter of course in the early days of sound films, He also served as a Spanish language coach for other actors, and appeared in many of the "Mexican Spitfire" films starring Lupe Vélez, where he also served to monitor Velez's Spanish ad-libs for profanity.
Other series that Wagner appeared in include the Charlie Chan films, and Tom Mix serials, as well as others made by Mascot Pictures Corporation. In the 1940s, Wagner was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in six films written and directed by Sturges, beginning with The Palm Beach Story
In 1940 during the filming of "The Mad Doctor", Wagner was credited for driving 50,000 miles as an on-screen taxi driver on the studio back lots of Hollywood. Since his appearance as a cab driver in Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935), producers often cast him as a wise-cracking or henchman taxi driver. "I was cast as a taxi driver about five years ago", Wagner told a reporter. "And I was typed."
In 1952, Wagner began to appear on television, in episodes of such shows as The Cisco Kid, Zane Grey Theater and Perry Mason, playing much the same kind of parts he played in the movies.
He was a regular cast member on the western television series Gunsmoke, making nearly 80 appearances between 1959 and 1973. He also appeared in many episodes of The Rifleman, Bonanza, Cimarron Strip, The Wild Wild West and Maverick, including a guest-starring role in the 1959 Rifleman episode "Blood Brother." He also had roles in the original Star Trek and The Twilight Zone series. He appeared in more than 200 television episodes between 1952 and 1974.
Notable film roles for Wagner include a supporting role in the cult science fiction classic Invaders from Mars (1953), an actor playing a gangster in the film-within-a-film segment of Bullets or Ballots (1936), and the bull farm attendant in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bullfighters (1945).
Late in his career, he appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He also occasionally composed music, such as the Mexican folk ballad "Pedro, Rudarte y Simon" in the Western film The Last Trail (1933).
Wagner died of a heart attack in Hollywood in 1975.
Filmography (192 Appearances)
Young Frankenstein
Terror in the Wax Museum
Evil Roy Slade
Columbo
Support Your Local Gunfighter
The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again
True Grit
The Legend of Lylah Clare
Rosemary's Baby
Hang 'em High
Return of the Gunfighter
A Big Hand for the Little Lady
Gunpoint
The Great Race
Shenandoah
4 for Texas
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
To Kill a Mockingbird
Pressure Point
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Andy Griffith Show
Sunrise at Campobello
Ice Palace
The Twilight Zone
The Rifleman
Public Pigeon No. 1
The Spirit of St. Louis
Robbery Under Arms
The Conqueror
I Died a Thousand Times
Illegal
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
East of Eden
The Country Girl
The Great Diamond Robbery
Donovan's Brain
Invaders from Mars
The Abbott and Costello Show
Flaming Feather
The Racket
The Secret of Convict Lake
Pier 23
Frenchie
Reign of Terror
It Happens Every Spring
The Red Pony
Caught
Flaxy Martin
Shed No Tears
The Sainted Sisters
The Miracle of the Bells
Half Past Midnight
Tycoon
Possessed
Sinbad the Sailor
That Brennan Girl
It's a Wonderful Life
Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
The Truth About Murder
The Lost Weekend
Fallen Angel
Radio Stars on Parade
Circumstantial Evidence
A Medal for Benny
Hi, Beautiful
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Boss of Boomtown
Undercover: How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines
A Night to Remember
Panama Hattie
Overland to Deadwood
Mexican Spitfire's Elephant
The Palm Beach Story
Sabotage Squad
The Talk of the Town
Matri-Phony
The Spoilers
Come on Danger
Moontide
The Wife Takes a Flyer
Obliging Young Lady
The Mexican Spitfire's Baby
Texas
Cyclone on Horseback
Ride on Vaquero
The Mad Doctor
Trail of the Vigilantes
The Bank Dick
Hired Wife
Men Against the Sky
Rhythm on the River
Wildcat Bus
Lucky Partners
They Drive by Night
The Ghost Breakers
Pop Always Pays
Buck Benny Rides Again
You Can't Fool Your Wife
The Grapes of Wrath
Millionaire Playboy
The House Across the Bay
Charlie Chan in Panama
Mexican Spitfire
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
Reno
The Roaring Twenties
Fifth Avenue Girl
The Day the Bookies Wept
Our Leading Citizen
The Gracie Allen Murder Case
The Girl from Mexico
The Return of the Cisco Kid
Mr. Moto in Danger Island
Money to Loan
I'll Tell the World
Cafe Society
Fast and Loose
Wings of the Navy
Off the Record
Scouts to the Rescue
Submarine Patrol
Little Tough Guys in Society
Tarnished Angel
The Arkansas Traveler
Painted Desert
Professor Beware
Cocoanut Grove
Maid's Night Out
Penrod and His Twin Brother
Born to Be Wild
Many Unhappy Returns
Alcatraz Island
Stage Door
Step Lively, Jeeves!
Border Cafe
San Quentin
Wings Over Honolulu
The Great O'Malley
Black Legion
You Only Live Once
God's Country and the Woman
We Who Are About to Die
Smart Blonde
Night Waitress
The Big Game
The Girl on the Front Page
Walking on Air
Love Begins at Twenty
Bullets or Ballots
Dancing Pirate
Sons o' Guns
The Crime Patrol
The Girl from Mandalay
Two in Revolt
The House of a Thousand Candles
Love on a Bet
Paddy O'Day
Chatterbox
The Adventures of Frank Merriwell
The Fighting Marines
Mary Burns, Fugitive
3 Kids and a Queen
Dr. Socrates
Charlie Chan in Shanghai
The Daring Young Man
The Miracle Rider
The Oil Raider
Gridiron Flash
She Had to Choose
Name the Woman
Blind Date
The Lost Jungle
The Personality Kid
Hell Bent for Love
The Lost Jungle
Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen
Before Dawn
Arizona to Broadway
Rockabye
Renegades of the West
The World and the Flesh
Cock of the Air
Suicide Fleet
The Good Bad Girl
Going Wild
The Last of the Vargas
Numbered Men
The Thrill Seekers
The First Auto
Flashing Oars
The Relay
Making Good