Edmund Cobb

Biography: Making his professional debut as a teenager in stock and vaudeville, actor Edmund Cobb began showing up in movies in 1910. From the beginning of his career to the end, Cobb was most comfortable in westerns. He appeared primarily in villainous roles in many "B" oaters of the 1930s and 1940s, and starred in his own 2-reel western series for Universal in the 1920s. At times, Cobb's villainy was more believable (and curiously more likeable) than the do-gooding activities of the hero, as witness the 1935 Reb Russell western Arizona Badman. He also kept busy with one-day bits in "straight" films; in 1941's Citizen Kane, Cobb is the bassett-faced Chicago Inquirer reporter to whom Everett Sloane explains "Mr. Kane and Mr. Leland...they haven't spoken together in years." In addition, Cobb was a fixture of Hollywood serials, claiming in his later years that he played a bit in both the first silent and the first sound serial ever made. Edmund Cobb was still in harness in the 1960s, doingMaking his professional debut as a teenager in stock and vaudeville, actor Edmund Cobb began showing up in movies in 1910. From the beginning of his career to the end, Cobb was most comfortable in westerns. He appeared primarily in villainous roles in many "B" oaters of the 1930s and 1940s, and starred in his own 2-reel western series for Universal in the 1920s. At times, Cobb's villainy was more believable (and curiously more likeable) than the do-gooding activities of the hero, as witness the 1935 Reb Russell western Arizona Badman. He also kept busy with one-day bits in "straight" films; in 1941's Citizen Kane, Cobb is the bassett-faced Chicago Inquirer reporter to whom Everett Sloane explains "Mr. Kane and Mr. Leland...they haven't spoken together in years." In addition, Cobb was a fixture of Hollywood serials, claiming in his later years that he played a bit in both the first silent and the first sound serial ever made. Edmund Cobb was still in harness in the 1960s, doing the work he loved in the all-star Technicolor western programmers produced by A.C. Lyles and Alex Gordon. Cobb was the grandson of politician Edmund G. Ross, who at one time was the controversial territorial governor of New Mexico.… Expand