Biography
Born on 22 February 1915 in New York City, New York, USA, Jules Munshin died in the same city on 19 February 1970. Before attaining Broadway stardom, he had already built experience in vaudeville, working both as a comedian and as a song-and-dance performer. While still in uniform during World War II, he appeared in the 1943 Army Play-by-Play production Pack Up Your Troubles. Immediately after the conflict, he scored a major success in Call Me Mister (1946). That breakthrough opened the door to several musical films of the late 1940s, among them Easter Parade (1948) and Take Me Out To The Ball Game (1949). Also in 1949 he appeared in That Midnight Kiss, Mario Lanza’s screen debut, and in On The Town, the picture that first brought Munshin’s name to audiences outside the United States. Additional screen credits during the 1950s and 1960s included Monte Carlo Baby (1951), Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957), Silk Stockings (1957), Wild And Wonderful (1964), and Monkeys, Go Home! (1967). His final film appearance was a bit part in Mastermind (1976).
Throughout the same two decades Munshin remained active on Broadway and in television. His stage work encompassed Bless You All (1950), Mrs. McThing (1952), The Good Soup (1960), Show Girl and The Gay Life (both 1961), plus replacement-cast engagements in Barefoot In The Park, which had opened in 1963, and The Front Page, which opened in 1969. Television roles included an appearance on Shirley Temple’s Storybook as Ichabod Crane in the 1958 episode The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, a 1960 production of The Emperor’s Clothes, single episodes of Car 54, Where Are You? (1963) and Dr Kildare (1964), and a 1968 television presentation of Kiss Me Kate.
Throughout the same two decades Munshin remained active on Broadway and in television. His stage work encompassed Bless You All (1950), Mrs. McThing (1952), The Good Soup (1960), Show Girl and The Gay Life (both 1961), plus replacement-cast engagements in Barefoot In The Park, which had opened in 1963, and The Front Page, which opened in 1969. Television roles included an appearance on Shirley Temple’s Storybook as Ichabod Crane in the 1958 episode The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, a 1960 production of The Emperor’s Clothes, single episodes of Car 54, Where Are You? (1963) and Dr Kildare (1964), and a 1968 television presentation of Kiss Me Kate.