Jack Boyle(1916-1969)

Jack Boyle was a dancer, choreographer, and actor whose career spanned from the mid-1930s through the 1960s. Starting out as a stage performer, Boyle worked primarily as an uncredited actor/dancer and choreographer's assistant in films during the 1940s before expanding into independent choreography assignments, mainly for television, in the mid 1950s. He is often confused with the contemporary dance director and performer Jack Boyle (John George Boyle), son of the famous dancer Johnny Boyle.

James Thomas Boyle was the son of well-known vaudevillians Jack Boyle (James Charles Boyle (1886-1934)) and his wife, Kitty Bryan (born Katherine O'Brien). The couple had no other children. Jack Sr. was known primarily as a singer and comic actor, and worked in several partnerships including Hussey & Boyle in the 1910s and the Kramer & Boyle in the 1920s. Initially based in New York, the family later moved to Hollywood where Jack Jr. attend Urban Military Academy and studied tap dancing at the Bud Murray School for Stage. In about 1931, the family moved back to Long Island, New York, but Jack Sr. died in 1934 at the age of 49 from a heart ailment. Jack Jr. and his mother returned to Los Angeles where he pursued a performing career. In 1940-41 he appeared in the stage revue "Meet the People" which originated in Hollywood and then played on Broadway. From May 1943 to June 1944 he served as an aviation cadet in the US Army.

Boyle began appearing in films by the early 1940s. In his first billed appearance, he was credited as "Patrick Brooks", but was known at the time by the press as "Jack Boyle, Jr." due to his father's residual fame. After a starring role in Johnny Doughboy (1942), he receded to uncredited parts and was thereafter known simply as "Jack Boyle". Boyle appeared frequently onscreen and also worked behind the scenes as a dance assistant. Beginning with the film Best Foot Forward (1943), he assisted dance director Charles Walters, an association which would continue into the ebb of movie musicals in the mid-1950s. Because of the lack of distinction between the two contemporary Jack Boyles, it is difficult to determine precisely which person was responsible for which project. However, it appears that James Thomas started choreographing independently for television in the 1950s, while John George was choreographing film and stage work in the 1940s and onward, and did not work in television. Boyle was the house choreographer for "The Red Skelton Show" (later known as The Red Skelton Hour (1951)) from 1956 to 1961 and also appeared on-screen from time to time. Boyle was married to the actress Joanne Dale. Unfortunately, like his father, Jack Boyle suffered an early death, at age 52.