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(December 22, 1917 in Chicago,
Illinois - December 25, 1976 in Huntington Beach, California)
 Darro
was born as Frank Johnson in 1917. His parents were The Flying
Johnsons, a flying circus act with the Sells Floto Circus. It was a
profession that his father attempted to train him in as well but
Frank's fear of heights became a problem.
In 1922, while the circus was in California, his parents separated.
Their circus act ended with their marriage. The growing film
industry, however, found a use for a small child who could do his
own stunts and, renamed Frankie Darro, he appeared in his first film
at the age of six.
As a child actor he appeared in many silent adventure, western, and
serial pictures of the 1920s, and became a very prolific actor as an
adolescent. His convincing delivery of dialogue and his obvious
comfort before the cameras kept him steadily employed. His most
important role of the 1930s was the lead in Wild Boys of the Road,
director William Wellman's indictment of aimless teens vagabonding
across America during the Depression. Darro remained popular in
serials, and co-starred with Gene Autry in Autry's first starring
film, The Phantom Empire.
Darro's wiry, athletic frame often typecast him as jockeys. He plays
crooked riders in Charlie Chan at the Race Track and A Day at the
Races.
In 1938 Darro joined Monogram Pictures to star in a series of action
melodramas. Darro's flair for comedy gradually increased the laugh
content in these films, and by 1940 Mantan Moreland was hired to
play his sidekick. The Frankie Darro series was so successful that
Monogram used it as a haven for performers whose own series had been
discontinued: Jackie Moran, Marcia Mae Jones, and Keye Luke joined
Darro and Moreland in 1940, and Gale Storm would be added in 1941.
Darro served in the armed forces during World War II. Upon his
return, Monogram welcomed him back and cast the perennially youthful
Darro in its "Teen Agers" campus comedies. When that series lapsed,
the studio gave Darro featured roles in its popular Bowery Boys
comedies.
Darro was an accomplished athlete and performed stunts for other
actors. He appeared on the Red Skelton TV show several times, and
hid inside "Robby the Robot" for the science-fiction film Forbidden
Planet.
Today's audiences would recognize Frankie Darro's voice as that of
Lampwick in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. |
