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Percy W. Kilbride (July 16, 1888 – December 11, 1964) was an American character actor. The son of Irish immigrants, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle series of feature films. Kilbride began working in the theater at the age of 12 and eventually left to become an actor on Broadway. He first played an 18th-century French dandy in A Tale of Two Cities. His film debut was as "Jakey" in the Pre-Code Carole Lombard film, White Woman (1933). He left Broadway for good in 1942, when Jack Benny insisted that Kilbride reprise his Broadway... MORE

Percy W. Kilbride (July 16, 1888 – December 11, 1964) was an American character actor. The son of Irish immigrants, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle series of feature films. Kilbride began working in the theater at the age of 12 and eventually left to become an actor on Broadway. He first played an 18th-century French dandy in A Tale of Two Cities. His film debut was as "Jakey" in the Pre-Code Carole Lombard film, White Woman (1933). He left Broadway for good in 1942, when Jack Benny insisted that Kilbride reprise his Broadway role in the film version of George Washington Slept Here. According to Benny, Percy Kilbride was the same character offscreen and on: quiet and friendly but principled, refusing to be paid more or less than what he considered a fair salary. Kilbride followed up the Benny film with a featured role in the Olsen and Johnson comedy Crazy House. In 1945, he appeared in The Southerner. In 1947, he and Marjorie Main appeared in The Egg and I, starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert as a sophisticated couple taking on farm life. Main and Kilbride were featured as folksy neighbors Ma and Pa Kettle, LESS