Charles Starrett

Starrett was born in Athol, Massachusetts, where his grandfather had built a prosperous tool works. He attended Worcester Academy, then graduated from Dartmouth College. A graduate of Worcester Academy in 1922, Starrett went on to study at Dartmouth College. While on the Dartmouth football team he was hired to play a football extra in the film The Quarterback (1926). Bitten by the acting bug, Starrett played minor roles in films and leading roles in stage plays. In 1928, he was a member of the Walker Company, a repertory theatre troupe headed by Stuart Walker.

He played the romantic lead in his first movie, Fast and Loose (1930), which starred Frank Morgan, Miriam Hopkins, and Carole Lombard. Starrett starred in the Canadian production The Viking (1931), a rugged outdoor adventure filmed on location in Newfoundland, which had begun as a Paramount Pictures project.

Starrett was very active for the next two years, playing juvenile leads for both major and minor studios. He was featured in Our Betters (1933), Murder on the Campus (1933), and as a young doctor named Orion in "Along Came Love", opposite Irene Hervey. Of Starrett's early character appearances, today's viewers may be most familiar with the Will Rogers picture Mr. Skitch (1933), featuring Starrett as the romantic lead.

Offscreen, Charles Starrett helped organize the Screen Actors Guild. He held membership card #10.