FORGOTTEN ONES: ARTHUR LAKE

I almost guarantee that anyone under 50 even knows the name Blondie, let alone the actor who played Dagwood - Arthur Lakes. In the 1940s, Arthur Lakes was pretty much a household name. Arthur William (Silverlake) Lake Jr. was born on April 17, 1905, in Corbin, Kentucky, when his father Arthur Adolph Silverlake (né Timberlake; 1882–1920) and uncle Archie Glenn Silverlake (né Timberlake; 1882–1963) were touring with a circus in an aerial act known as "The Flying Silverlakes". His mother, Edith Goodwin (née Edith Blanche Fautch; 1888–1958) was an actress. His parents later appeared in vaudeville in a skit "Family Affair", traveling throughout the South and Southwest United States. Arthur first appeared on stage as a baby in Uncle Tom's Cabin; his sister Florence and he became part of the act in 1910. Their mother took the children to Hollywood to get into films, and Arthur made his screen debut in the silent Jack and the Beanstalk (1917). Florence became a successful actress achieving a degree of fame as one of the screen wives of comedian Edgar Kennedy.

Universal Pictures signed Lake to a contract where, as an adolescent, he played character parts in Westerns. At age 19 he began starring in a long series of comedy shorts for Universal, which ran through 1930. He signed with RKO Radio Pictures shortly after it formed in 1928. There he made Dance Hall (1929), and Cheer Up and Smile (1930). Moviegoers first heard Lake speak when he appeared as Harold Astor, the lead of the 1929 musical comedy On with the Show!, which is notable as the first all-talking feature film using the Vitaphone process, and as Warner Bros' first all-color film shot in two-color Technicolor. In the early sound film era, Lake typically played light romantic roles, often with a comic "Mama's Boy" tone to them, such as 1931's Indiscreet, starring Gloria Swanson. He also had a substantial part as the bellhop in the 1937 film Topper.

Arthur Lake is best known for portraying Dagwood Bumstead, the husband of the title character of the Blondie comic strip, in 28. Blondie features produced by Columbia Pictures between 1938 and 1950, co-starring Penny Singleton as Blondie and Larry Simms as Baby Dumpling (later known as Alexander). Lake also played Dagwood on the radio series, which ran concurrently with the film series from 1938 to 1950, earning Lake a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6646 Hollywood Blvd. (Many of the actors on the radio show noted Lake's commitment to the program, stating that on the day of the broadcast, Lake became Dagwood Bumstead.)

Far from feeling bitter about being typecast, Lake continued to embrace the role. He played Dagwood in a short-lived 1957 Blondie TV series, and often gave speeches to Rotary clubs and other civic organizations (eagerly posing for pictures with a Dagwood sandwich), well into the 1960s and beyond. He died in 1987.

In his book about the Black Dahlia murder case, author Donald H. Wolfe asserts that Arthur Lake was questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department as a suspect, having been acquainted with the victim through her volunteer work at the Hollywood Canteen. No charges were filed and Lake was one of many persons of interest in a case that remains unsolved.

Lake died of a heart attack in Indian Wells, California, on January 9, 1987, and is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in the Douras family mausoleum, along with actress Marion Davies and her husband, Horace G. Brown. Lake's widow Patricia was interred there upon her death in 1993...