Willie Best

Description

William Best (May 27, 1913^[1][2][3] – February 27, 1962), sometimes known as Sleep n’ Eat,^[4] was an American television and film actor.^[5][6]

Best was one of the first African American film actors and comedians to become well known. In the 21st century, his work, like that of Stepin Fetchit, is sometimes reviled because he was often called upon to play stereotypically lazy, illiterate, and/or simple-minded characters in films. Of the 124 films he appeared in, he received screen credit in at least 77, an unusual feat for an African American bit player. A native of Sunflower, Mississippi, Best reached Hollywood as a chauffeur for a vacationing couple. He decided to stay in the region and began his performing career with a traveling show in southern California. He was regularly hired as a character actor in Hollywood films after a talent scout discovered him on stage. Willie Best appeared in more than one hundred films of the 1930s and 1940s. Although several sources state that for years he was billed only as “Sleep n’ Eat”, Best received credit under this moniker instead of his real name in only six movies: his first film as a bit player (Harold Lloyd’s Feet First) and in Up Pops the Devil (1931), The Monster Walks (1932), Kentucky Kernels and West of the Pecos (both 1934), and Murder on a Honeymoon (1935). He thereafter usually received credit as “Willie Best” or “William Best”.

After a drug arrest ended his film career,^{[citation needed]} Best worked in television in the 1950s, almost exclusively at the Hal Roach studio. He became known to early TV audiences as Charlie, the elevator operator on CBS‘s My Little Margie, from 1953 to 1955.^[10] He also played Willie, the house servant/handyman and close friend of the title character of ABC’s The Trouble with Father, for its entire run from 1950 to 1955.^[10]: 1109 He also played Billy Slocum in the syndicated drama Waterfront (1954).^[10]: 1154 He played a surprising straight role, without comedy or dialect, in a Christmas-themed episode of Racket Squad. Best died on February 27, 1962, at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California, of cancer at age 48. He was buried (by the Motion Picture Fund) on March 5, 1962, at Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.^[11]