Fred Walton(1909-1969)
- Actor
Fred Walton is probably the most written about male-extra in the history of movies. Most people don't know his real name, they just know him by his nickname "O.K. Freddie." While there is not much known about how Fred Walton arrived in Hollywood, he was reportedly a film extra that started in movies in the 1920s. He quickly gained the respect and recognition of his peers through his various exploits that would follow him throughout his entire career.
Numerous celebrities have written about Fred's unique gift but most people never tell about the kind of man that Fred was. In the 1940s, he was on a film set playing a drummer in a scene where the town was burning around him and a piece of the burning building fell onto his drum and it caught fire. The true professional that Walton was, he did not want to ruin the scene so he continued to play the drum though the drum was on fire. After the director yelled cut, Walton went over and had his burns tended to by a doctor and the director found out and he made sure that Walton was cast as an extra in every movie he made from that point forward.
While extra work can be considered boring, Walton was kept around by several stars to help liven up the environment. Abbott and Costello reportedly kept him under contract so that he could liven up their set with his antics and so that Lou Costello could show off Fred's size to unsuspecting females. Walton was always looking to have fun and as he got older, he was known to bring a whoopee cushion on set to lighten up the mood. When he wasn't on a film set, he was usually checking the gutters for various things that people dropped and he bragged to people that he never paid for a postage stamp. He was hardly ever out of work and he was highly thought of by various stars of his generation.
Fred Walton might have been a very quirky individual but he was considered a true professional among his peers. He was known to show up on time and appear where he was needed. He was considered a legend among many of his fellow extras in the industry and while his exploits have almost become mythic among his peers, he leaves behind a large body of work from the 1930s until his death in 1969 but for the few who really knew Fred Walton, he leaves behind a lot of fond memories and remembrances as one of Hollywood's truly nice guys.
Numerous celebrities have written about Fred's unique gift but most people never tell about the kind of man that Fred was. In the 1940s, he was on a film set playing a drummer in a scene where the town was burning around him and a piece of the burning building fell onto his drum and it caught fire. The true professional that Walton was, he did not want to ruin the scene so he continued to play the drum though the drum was on fire. After the director yelled cut, Walton went over and had his burns tended to by a doctor and the director found out and he made sure that Walton was cast as an extra in every movie he made from that point forward.
While extra work can be considered boring, Walton was kept around by several stars to help liven up the environment. Abbott and Costello reportedly kept him under contract so that he could liven up their set with his antics and so that Lou Costello could show off Fred's size to unsuspecting females. Walton was always looking to have fun and as he got older, he was known to bring a whoopee cushion on set to lighten up the mood. When he wasn't on a film set, he was usually checking the gutters for various things that people dropped and he bragged to people that he never paid for a postage stamp. He was hardly ever out of work and he was highly thought of by various stars of his generation.
Fred Walton might have been a very quirky individual but he was considered a true professional among his peers. He was known to show up on time and appear where he was needed. He was considered a legend among many of his fellow extras in the industry and while his exploits have almost become mythic among his peers, he leaves behind a large body of work from the 1930s until his death in 1969 but for the few who really knew Fred Walton, he leaves behind a lot of fond memories and remembrances as one of Hollywood's truly nice guys.
