Biography

Rags Ragland was a boxer, then a burlesque comedian and then a Broadway performer before ending up in Hollywood to repeat his stage role as the boisterous sailor in Panama Hattie (1942), in which Ann Sothern played on film the part that had been played on Broadway by Ethel Merman. Ragland, typecast as a good-natured oaf with a knack for fracturing the English language, had as his sole movie employer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in some two dozen of whose lighter vehicles he appeared, in the company of such MGM luminaries as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.
- IMDb mini biography by: Bill Takacs <kinephile@aol.com>

Frank Sinatra sang at his funeral. Phil Silvers delivered the eulogy.

A "top banana" on Minsky's burlesque stage for years, Rags was known for his highly active libido off stage, and could count star Minsky's stripper Gypsy Rose Lee as just one of his many conquests.

Died of uremic poisoning.

Had one son, John.

Father: Adam Ragland; Mother: Estella Kitty Petty.