DeWitt Jennings Biography

Stocky, stiff-backed actor DeWitt C. Jennings made his film bow in Cecil B. DeMille's The Warrens of Virginia (1915). After scores of silents, Jennings made a seamless transition to talkies, appearing in half a dozen films in 1929 alone. He was usually cast as gruff police captains or baffled suburban fathers (he was Harold Lloyd's dad in 1932's Movie Crazy). Generally dignified and reserved, DeWitt C. Jennings was afforded a rare opportunity to tear a passion to tatters as the "mystery" murderer (one of the most obvious in movie history) in 1934's Death on the Diamond. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi