Guy Kibbee

Kibbee was born in El Paso, Texas. His father was editor of the El Paso Herald-Post newspaper, and Kibbee learned how to set type at age 7. At the age of 14, he ran away to join a traveling show. His younger brother was actor Milton Kibbee. Kibbee began his entertainment career on Mississippi riverboats. He became an actor in traveling stock companies. He began to lose his hair at 19. In his early days on stage, he was a romantic leading man.

In 1930, he made his debut on Broadway in the play Torch Song, which won acclaim in New York and attracted the interest of Hollywood. Shortly afterwards, Paramount Pictures signed Kibbee, and he moved to California. He later became part of the Warner Bros. stock company, contract actors who cycled through different productions in supporting roles. Kibbee's specialty was daft and jovial characters; he is perhaps best remembered for the films 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Captain Blood (1935), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), though he also played the expatriate inn owner in Joan Crawford's Rain (1932). One of his few starring performances during this period was the title role of Babbit (1934), a much altered and compressed version of the Sinclair Lewis novel.

He is also remembered for his performance as Mr. Webb, editor of the Grover's Corners, New Hampshire newspaper, and father of Emily Webb (played by Martha Scott) in the film version of the classic Thornton Wilder play Our Town.