John Qualen
Audiences rate John Qualen’s films higher than 93% of the 3,467 people with 10 or more films on ThumbScore. See the full ranking
Free to watch now (26 Oct): A Patch of Blue (Kanopy) · Woman on the Run (Roku Channel, Fandango at Home, Plex, Prime Video (free), Cineverse, Tubi, Kanopy, Hoopla, Fawesome) · Jungle Book (Philo, Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Plex, Prime Video (free), Cineverse, Xumo Play, Tubi, Kanopy, Hoopla, Fawesome) · The Searchers (Fawesome) · The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Fawesome) · The Grapes of Wrath (Hoopla, Fawesome).
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The ThumbScore for John Qualen (80.1%) is the average audience approval rating across 11 films. Each movie's ThumbScore represents the percentage of real audiences who rated it positively. A higher score means more of John's films are well-received by everyday viewers.
John Qualen (born Johan Mandt Kvalen, December 8, 1899 – September 12, 1987) was a Canadian-American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles. Qualen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of immigrants from Norway; his father was a Lutheran minister and changed the family's original surname, "Kvalen", to "Qualen" – though some sources give Oleson, later Oleson Kvalen as Qualen's earlier surnames. His father's ministering meant many moves and John was 20 when he graduated from Elgin High School in 1920. Though he was awarded a scholarship to Northwestern University after he won an oratory contest he never attended college. In a Milwaukee Journal interview he said he needed to start working and did so with the Chattaqua Circuit.
Eventually reaching Broadway, he gained his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. His movie career began when he recreated the role in the film version. This was followed by his appearance in John Ford's Arrowsmith (1931) which began a more than thirty year membership in the director's "stock company", with important supporting roles in The Searchers (1956), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Appearing in well over one hundred films, and acting extensively on television into the 1970s, Qualen performed many of his roles with various accents, usually Scandinavian, often intended for comic effect. Three of his more memorable roles showcase his versatility. Qualen assumed a Midwestern dialect as Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and as the confused killer Earl Williams in Howard Hawks' classic comedy His Girl Friday (also 1940).
Born 1899-12-08 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Died 1987-09-12.
Biography from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (CC BY-SA).
On ThumbScore, John Qualen appears in 11 films with an average audience score of 80.1%, most frequently in the Western genre.
Sources: TMDB
