Jay Novello
Jay Novello
American actor Jay Novello began his film career with Tenth Avenue Kid (1938). Small, wiry and mustachioed, Novello found a home in Hollywood playing shifty street characters and petty thieves; during the war he displayed a friendlier image as a Latin-American type, appearing as waiters and hotel clerks in innumerable Good Neighbor films set south of the border. Once the war was over, it was back to those scraggly little characters, even in such period pieces as The Robe (1953), in which Novello played the unsavory slave dealer who sold Victor Mature to Richard Burton. Adept in TV comedy roles as meek milquetoasts and henpecked husbands, Novello was a particular favorite of Lucille Ball, who used the actor prominently in both I Love Lucy (first as the man duped by the "Ethel to Tillie" seance, then as a gondolier in a later episode) and The Lucy Show (as a softhearted safecracker). Jay Novello remained active in films into the '60s, as scurrilous as ever in such fantasy films as The Lost World (1960) and Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961); he also stayed busy in such TV programs as The Mothers in Law, My Three Sons and McHale's Navy, playing a recurring role in the latter series as a resourceful Italian mayor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Filmography of Jay Novello:
- Sabaka with Boris Karloff , Reginald Denny , June Foray , Victor Jory , Vito Scotti , Jeanne Bates
- Bad Man of Deadwood with Roy Rogers , George "Gabby" Hayes , Henry Brandon , Herbert Rawlinson , Hal Taliaferro , Horace Murphy , Monte Blue , Ralf Harolde , Jack Kirk , Eddie Acuff , Ernie S. Adams , Robert W. Frazer , Harry Sr. Harvey , George H. Lloyd , Tom London , Jack O'Shea , Jack Rockwell , Archie Twitchell , Bob Woodward , Fred Burns , Yakima Canutt , George Morrell
- Pocketful of Miracles with Glenn Ford , Bette Davis , Hope Lange , Arthur O'Connell , Peter Falk , Edward Everett Horton , Thomas Mitchell , Mickey Shaughnessy , David Brian , Sheldon Leonard , Ann-Margret , John Litel , Jerome Cowan , Frank Ferguson , Fritz Feld , Benny Rubin , Jack Elam , Mike Mazurki , Hayden Rorke , Doodles Weaver , Paul E. Burns , Angelo Rossitto , George E. Stone , Tom Fadden , Willis B. Bouchey , Betty Bronson , Ellen Corby , Byron K. Foulger , Barton MacLane , Harry "Snub" Pollard
- The Robe with Richard Burton , Jean Simmons , Victor Mature , Michael Rennie , Jay Robinson , Dean Jagger , Torin Thatcher , Richard Boone , Jeff Morrow , Ernest Thesiger , Dawn Addams , Leon Askin , Michael Ansara , Frank DeKova , Harry Shearer , Francis Pierlot , Rosalind Ivan , John Doucette , Roy Gordon , Percy Helton , Emmett Lynn , Mae Marsh , Cameron Mitchell , Ford Rainey , Hayden Rorke , Betta Saint John , George E. Stone , Anne Bancroft , George H. Melford
- The Prodigal with Lana Turner , Edmund Purdom , Louis Calhern , Audrey Dalton , Neville Brand , Taina Elg , Walter Hampden , Francis L. Sullivan , Joseph Wiseman , Cecil Kellaway , Henry Daniell , Paul Cavanagh , Dorothy Adams , Richard Devon , Charles Wagenheim , Paul Bryar , John Dehner , Jody Gilbert , Allison Hayes , George J. Lewis , Chuck Roberson , Almira Sessions
- Dragon Seed with Katharine Hepburn , Walter Huston , Aline MacMahon , Akim Tamiroff , Turhan Bey , J. Carrol Naish , Hurd Hatfield , Agnes Moorehead , Henry Travers , Frances Rafferty , Jacqueline DeWit , Paul E. Burns , Philip Ahn , Lionel Barrymore , Benson Fong , Al Hill , Keye Luke , Leonard Mudie , Leonard Strong , Philip vanZandt , Abner Biberman
- Boys Town with Spencer Tracy , Mickey Rooney , Henry Hull , Leslie Fenton , Addison W. Richards , Gene Reynolds , Edward Norris , Minor Watson , Jonathan Hale , Frankie Thomas , Sidney Miller , Robert Emmett Keane , Arthur Aylesworth , Barbara Bedford , Donald Haines , John Hamilton , Al Hill , Victor Kilian , Kane Richmond , Phillip Terry , William Worthington , Tommy Noonan
Jay Novello Trivia
