Henry Travers

Travers was born in Prudhoe, Northumberland, and was the son of Daniel Heagerty, a doctor originally from Ireland, and Ellen Gillman Hornibrook, also a native of Ireland (County Cork). She was previously married to William H. Belcher, a merchant seaman. He died in 1869. Travers had a half-brother, Samuel William Belcher, by his mother's previous marriage. He had a brother, Daniel George Belsaigne Heagerty, and a sister, Mary Sophia Maude Heagerty. Travers grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and many biographies wrongly report him as being born there.

The Travers family lived in Prudhoe for a couple of years before moving from Woodburn, on the A68 road near Corsenside, Northumberland, in about 1866, to Tweedmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed, in about 1876. Initially, he trained as an architect at Berwick, before taking to the stage under the name Henry Travers. Travers gained early experience acting in repertory theatre in England. He was billed as Travers Heagerty for a December 1895 production. He played character roles almost from the beginning of his acting career in 1894, often figures who were much older than himself. He made his Broadway debut in The Price of Peace (1901) but returned to England. Travers settled in the United States and played frequently from November 1917 until December 1938 on Broadway in over 30 plays, and was described in The New Yorker as 'one of the most consistent performers now in the American theatre, and at the same time one of its least appreciated'. His last play on Broadway You Can't Take It with You was his best known, where he acted in over 380 performances in two years. In the Oscar-winning movie You Can't Take It With You, Lionel Barrymore played the role which Travers had portrayed on Broadway.

His first film was Reunion in Vienna in 1933. In the same year, he played the father of Gloria Stuart in the horror film The Invisible Man. He often portrayed doctors, judges, and fathers of the main figures in supporting roles. Travers specialized on portraying slightly wry and bumbling but friendly and lovable older men. He appeared with Greer Garson and Ronald Colman in Random Harvest (1942) and with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). Alfred Hitchcock used Travers as a Comic relief in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), where he played a bank clerk with a passion for criminal magazines. The character actor also portrayed the Railway Station Master Mr. Ballard with a love for roses who finally wins the annual flower show in his village shortly before dying in a bombardment in Mrs. Miniver. He received an Academy Award-nomination as Best Supporting Actor for this appearance.

Travers's best remembered role was as James Stewart's somewhat befuddled but kind-hearted guardian angel Clarence Odbody in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Travers plays the guardian angel who saves Stewart's from committing suicide, and then shows him how wonderful his life really is. Though the film was a financial flop, it later became a Christmas perennial.

Travers retired in 1949 after his supporting role in The Girl From Jones Beach. Overall, he acted in 52 films.