Watch Charles Grapewin Videos

Charley Ellsworth Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956) was an American vaudeville performer and a stage and film actor, who portrayed Uncle Henry in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Grandpa Joad in the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Born in Xenia, Ohio, Charley Ellsworth Grapewin ran away from home to be a circus acrobat which led him to work as an aerialist and trapeze artist in a traveling circus before turning to acting. He traveled all over the world with the famous P. T. Barnum circus. After this he went on and off of stage for the next thirty years starting with... MORE

Charley Ellsworth Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956) was an American vaudeville performer and a stage and film actor, who portrayed Uncle Henry in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Grandpa Joad in the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Born in Xenia, Ohio, Charley Ellsworth Grapewin ran away from home to be a circus acrobat which led him to work as an aerialist and trapeze artist in a traveling circus before turning to acting. He traveled all over the world with the famous P. T. Barnum circus. After this he went on and off of stage for the next thirty years starting with various stock companies and wrote stage plays as a vehicle for himself. His sole Broadway theatre credit was the short-lived play It's Up To You John Henry in 1905. Grapewin began in silent films at the turn of the century. His very first films were two "moving image shorts" made by Frederick S. Armitage and released in November 1900; Chimmie Hicks at the Races (also known as Above the Limit) and Chimmie Hicks and the Rum Omelet, both shot in September and October 1900 and released in November of that year. During his long career, Grapewin appeared in more than one hundred films, including The Good LESS