| Billy Chapin | |
| Birth Name: | William McClellan Chapin |
| Birth Date: | 1943 12, mf=yes |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Actor |
| Awards: | 1951 New York Drama Critics Award for Three Wishes For Jamie (stage musical version) |
| Years Active: | 1944–1959 |
| Children: | 3 |
| Relatives: | Michael Chapin (brother) Lauren Chapin (sister) |
William McClellan Chapin (December 28, 1943 - December 2, 2016) was an American child actor, known for a considerable number of screen and TV performances from 1943 to 1959 and best remembered for both his roles as the "diaper manager" Christie Cooper in the 1953 family feature The Kid from Left Field and little John Harper in Charles Laughton's 1955 film noir movie The Night of the Hunter.
Chapin was the brother of former child actors Lauren Chapin, known as Kathy "Kitten" Anderson from the TV series Father Knows Best and of Michael Chapin, another child performer of the 1940s and 1950s.[1]
Born William McClellan Chapin on December 28, 1943, in Los Angeles, he was the second of three children of Roy Chapin, a bank manager, and Marquerite Alice Barringer, who later became a kind of personal coach for all of her children's acting careers.[2] His sister Lauren later told about alcohol problems and sexual abuse in the troubled family.
When only a few weeks old, Chapin made his screen debut in the uncredited role of "Baby Girl" in 1944's Casanova Brown, starring Gary Cooper. Five months later he had another uncredited baby role in Marriage Is a Private Affair, starring Lana Turner.[3] He had another bit role in The Cockeyed Miracle in 1946. He started acting professionally in 1951 in a supporting role in the Broadway stage musical Three Wishes for Jamie, which, while passably successful, toured the West Coast in the summer of the same year. After essential changes regarding dramatization of the play and replacements in the original West Coast cast, when the play moved to New York City in early 1952,[4] it finally became a considerable success and earned him the N.Y. Drama Critics Award as the most promising young actor of the year.[3]
This stage success might have earned him his role as the grandson in the 1952 TV adaption of Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway play, On Borrowed Time at the Celanese Theatre, but his first real screen role he landed just one year later as the "Diaper Manager" Christie Cooper, the lead role of the 1953 family release The Kid from Left Field, starring Dan Dailey, Anne Bancroft and Lloyd Bridges.
He then did three successive episodes of Jack Webb's Dragnet and two other television shows before he portrayed Brian "Gadge" Robertson, the bright grandson of a fictive astroscientist in the science fiction B-flick Tobor the Great, 1954.
Two smaller screen appearances then fell into line, one in a film noir, entitled Naked Alibi, 1954, with Sterling Hayden and Gloria Grahame and another bit role in the famous screen musical There's No Business Like Show Business, again starring Dan Dailey with Donald O'Connor and Marilyn Monroe, before the boy gained his next memorable screen attentions as the young son of historic clergyman Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter and Victor Mature's screen son in his second film noir: Violent Saturday, both of which were released in 1955.In between he continued to appear in standard television series such as Waterfront, The Millionaire, Cheyenne, and My Friend Flicka, and various TV theaters, anthologies and dramas.
When Charles Laughton personally cast Billy Chapin for the role of young John Harper in his 1955 film classic The Night of the Hunter, the boy was already considered an "acting technician" among the child performers of his time. After a private meeting with Billy in his Hollywood home, Laughton told Davis Grubb, the author of the original story: "What I want is a flexible child, and the boy is exactly that."[5] Later, Laughton publicly offered praise especially for "...the strength of [Chapin's] innate ability to understand the construction of a scene, its impact and its importance."[5] Vintage sources claimed that Laughton might find it difficult to direct Chapin, as well as Sally Jane Bruce, who played his younger sister (Pearl Harper), but contemporary sources and rediscovered archival material from the production of The Night of the Hunter prove that, aside from a few intergenerational tiffs, the old man and the boy got along wonderfully, even if, according to these sources, Robert Mitchum, who played the bogus preacher Harry Powell, in fact took over some directing tasks.[5] Though now considered a classic, The Night of the Hunter was a critical and commercial failure when released, "because of its lack of the proper trappings."[6] The film was an inductee in the 1992 National Film Registry list.[7]
Chapin's final big screen appearance came just a year after The Night of the Hunter, as young Jody Burrows in the 1956 B-Western Tension at Table Rock, starring Richard Egan. From then on his film career declined until he was acting solely on television, where his career eventually ended late in 1959 in an episode of the long-running family series Fury (1955–60).
In her own biography, Chapin's sister Lauren describes Chapin as having had alcohol and drug problems in his twenties and thirties.[2] Billy Chapin served in the United States Marines, achieved a college education and went into private industry. He married and had three children. In his later years, he was plagued by health problems.[8]
Chapin died December 2, 2016, after a long illness, twenty-six days away from his 73rd birthday.[9] He died of lung cancer while suffering from dementia, having previously had a stroke.[10]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1944 | Casanova Brown | The Brown's Baby Girl | Uncredited |
| Marriage Is a Private Affair | The Baby | Uncredited | |
| 1946 | The Cockeyed Miracle | Boy | a.k.a. The Return of Mr. Griggs (US promotional title) a.k.a. Mr. Griggs Returns (UK) |
| 1953 | Affair with a Stranger | Timmy | |
| The Kid from Left Field | Christie Cooper | ||
| 1954 | Tobor the Great | Brian "Gadge" Robertson | |
| Naked Alibi | Petey | ||
| There's No Business Like Show Business | Steve Donahue, aged 10 | Uncredited[11] | |
| 1955 | A Man Called Peter | Peter John Marshall | |
| Violent Saturday | Steve Martin | ||
| The Night of the Hunter | John Harper | ||
| 1956 | Tension at Table Rock | Jody Burrows | |
| Year | Show/Series/Episode | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Celanese Theatre - Episode: Winterset | unknown | originally aired on 31 October |
| 1952 | Celanese Theatre - Episode: On Borrowed Time | Grandson | originally aired on June 25 |
| 1953 | Dragnet (a.k.a. Badge 714) - Episode: The Big White Rat | unknown | originally aired on September 3 |
| Dragnet (a.k.a. Badge 714) - Episode: The Big Little Jesus | Joseph Hefferman | originally aired on December 24 | |
| 1954 | Dragnet (a.k.a. Badge 714) - Episode: The Big Children | Richard Kessler | originally aired on February 11 |
| A Letter To Loretta (a.k.a. The Loretta Young Show/Theatre) - Episode: The New York Story | Robbie Thorne | originally aired on February 28 | |
| Lux Video Theatre (a.k.a. Summer Video Theatre)- Episode: Pick Off The Litter | Jeremy | originally aired on April 8 | |
| Waterfront - Episode: The Rift | Teddy Herrick | originally airing unknown | |
| Waterfront - Episode: Sunken Treasure | Teddy Herrick | originally aired on August 28 | |
| Waterfront - Episode: Capt'n Long John | Teddy Herrick | originally aired on September 19 | |
| 1955 | Stage 7 - The Greatest Man In The World | Todd Jennings | originally aired on March 13 |
| Lux Video Theatre (a.k.a. Summer Video Theatre)- Episode: The Last Confession | Gaston | originally aired on September 1 | |
| Celebrity Playhouse - Episode: Day Of The Trial | unknown | originally aired on October 4 | |
| Cheyenne - Episode: "Julesburg" | Tommy Scott | originally aired on October 11 | |
| General Electric Theater (a.k.a. G.E. Theatre)- Outpost At Home | unknown | originally aired on October 23 | |
| The Millionaire (a.k.a. If I Had A Million) - The Tom Bryan Story | Tom Bryan | originally aired on November 2 | |
| My Friend Flicka - Episode: Silver Saddle | unknown | originally aired on December 16 | |
| 1956 | Ford Star Jubilee - Episode: The Day Lincoln Was Shot | unknown | originally aired on February 1 |
| Fury (a.k.a. Brave Stallion) - Episode: The Test | Louis Baxter Jr. | originally aired on March 3 | |
| TV Reader's Digest - Episode: Lost, Strayed And Lonely(a.k.a. It's A Wise Father)http://www.tv.com/tv-readers-digest/its-a-wise-father/episode/627568/summary.htmlhttp://ctva.biz/US/Anthology/TVReadersDigest.htm | Christopher | originally aired on March 5 | |
| Climax! (a.k.a. Climax Mystery Theatre) - Episode: A Trophy For Howard Davenport | Billy | originally aired on June 28 | |
| Crossroads - Episode: Tenement Saint | Jerry | originally aired on December 14 | |
| 1957 | The Ford Television Theatre (a.k.a. Ford Theatre) - Episode: Ringside Seat | Billy Curran | originally aired on February 13 |
| Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater (a.k.a. The Westerners)- Episode: Black Creek Encounter | Billy Morrison | originally aired on March 8 | |
| Panic! (a.k.a. No Warning - US second season title) - Episode: The Boy | Tommy Williams | originally aired on March 19 | |
| 1958 | Meet McGraw - Episode: Friend Of The Court https://web.archive.org/web/20111003221333/http://ctva.biz/US/Crime/MeetMcGraw.htm | Tommy Cassidy | originally aired on February 25 |
| The Californians - Episode: The Marshall | Joey | originally aired on March 11 | |
| 1959 | Leave It to Beaver - Episode: The Grass Is Always Greener | Pete Fletcher | originally aired on January 8 |
| Frontier Justice - Episode: Black Creek Encounter http://www.tv.com/frontier-justice/black-creek-encounter/episode/117348/summary.html | Billy Morrison | originally aired on July 27 | |
| Fury (a.k.a. Brave Stallion) - Episode: The Rocketeers | Vic Rockwell | originally aired on December 5 (final appearance) | |