Billy Watson obit

Billy Watson, Child Actor in ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ and ‘In Old Chicago,’ Dies at 98

He and his eight siblings appeared in hundreds of movies starting in the silent era, and his family has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

He was not on the list.

Billy Watson, a former child actor from a famous Hollywood family of child actors who appeared in such classic films as Show Boat, In Old Chicago and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, has died. He was 98.

Watson died Feb. 17 of natural causes at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, his family announced.

Watson was one of nine kids, and by the late 1930s, he and his siblings had appeared in hundreds of films. His family is the only one to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, getting their place on Hollywood Boulevard in 1999.

In Old Chicago (1938), Watson portrayed Don Ameche’s character as a boy, then was one of the sons of Gov. Hopper (Guy Kibbee), the man who appoints Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith to the Senate, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). His real-life brothers Delmar, Harry and Garry were his brothers in the movie,

In the great film year of 1939, Watson also showed up in Young Mr. Lincoln with Henry Fonda, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with Mickey Rooney and in Stanley and Livingstone with Spencer Tracy.

The sixth of nine children — six sons and three daughters — William Richard Watson was born in 1923 on Christmas Day in Los Angeles.

His mother, Golda, washed and ironed actors’ costumes, and his father, Coy Watson Sr., was a cowboy stuntman who created the piano-wire special effects used for Douglas Fairbanks’ flying carpet in Raoul Walsh’s The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios was located very close to the family home in Edendale in what is now Echo Park. When a director would come to Watson’s dad and say, “I need a child for a movie. Do you have one?” he would respond, “What size and what sex?”

(The eldest child, Coy Watson Jr., appeared in so many of Sennett’s Keystone Cops comedies, he was nicknamed “The Keystone Kid.” Meanwhile, Delmar was Shirley Temple’s goat-herding friend in 1937’s Heidi, and brother Bobs Watson played Pee Wee in 1938’s Boys Town.)

In 1928, Billy Watson got into his first two films, the silent features Taxi 13 and Taking a Chance, then showed up in Love, Live and Laugh (1929), starring George Jessel.

His film résumé also included Cannonball Express (1932), Death on the Diamond (1934), Will Rogers’ Life Begins at 40 (1935), Katharine Hepburn’s Mary of Scotland (1936), Kidnapped (1938) and I Take This Woman (1940), his final onscreen credit, according to IMDb.

After attending Belmont High School, Watson served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, became a commercial photographer in the Los Angeles area — many of his brothers were in the guard and worked as photographers, too — and performed in local theater groups.

Survivors include his children, Bill, Dennis and Rod; 10 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and his brother Garry, now 93. His wife of 62 years, Sue, died in 2008.

Actor (24 credits)

 1940 I Take This Woman

Murphy Kid (scenes deleted)

 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Hopper Boy

 1939 Stanley and Livingstone

Billy (uncredited)

 1939 Young Mr. Lincoln

Boy on Right of Bean Shooter (uncredited)

 1939 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Eliot (uncredited)

 1938 Kidnapped

Bobby MacDonald

 1938 In Old Chicago

Jack O'Leary (as a boy)

 1937 Hot Water

Droopy (uncredited)

 1936 The Plough and the Stars (uncredited)

 1936 Mary of Scotland

Fisherman's Son (uncredited)

 1936 Show Boat

Boy (uncredited)

 1935 Life Begins at 40

Meriwhether Son (uncredited)

 1935 The Winning Ticket

Joey Tomasello Jr.

 1934 The Little Minister

Micah

 1934 Death on the Diamond

Boy (uncredited)

 1933 Doctor Bull

Billy Watson - School Boy (uncredited)

 1932 False Impressions (Short)

2nd Son (uncredited)

 1932 Cannonball Express

Little Boy (uncredited)

 1931 Bad Girl

Floyd (uncredited)

 1931 Too Many Cooks

Cousin Jimmy Cook (uncredited)

 1930 Who's the Boss (Short)

One of the Children (as The Three Watson Boys)

 1929 Love, Live and Laugh

Little Boy (uncredited)

 1928 Taking a Chance (uncredited)

 1928 Taxi 13

Mactavish Child (uncredited)

 

Self (1 credit)

 1958 This Is Your Life (TV Series)

Self

- Coy and Goldie Watson (1958) ... Self