Lynton Brent

Short Biography

Biography by Hans J. WollsteinA dignified-looking young character actor, Lynton Brent began his career on the stage, appearing in plays such as The Student Prince, Paid in Full, and as Laertes in Hamlet before entering films in 1930. Handsome enough in an average kind of way, Brent played such supporting roles as reporters (King Kong [1933]), radio operators (Streamline Express [1935]), and again Laertes, in the play-within-the-film I'll Love You Always ([1935], Garbo's interpreter Sven Hugo Borg was Hamlet!). Today, however, Brent is mainly remembered for his many roles in Columbia short subjects opposite the Three Stooges. His dignity always in shambles by the denouement, Brent was a welcome addition to the stock company, which at the time also included such comparative (and battle scarred) veterans as Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent. Leaving the short subject department in the early '40s, Brent played everyone from henchmen to lawmen in scores of B-Westerns and action melodramas, more often than not unbilled. He worked well into the television era, retiring in the late '60s. Offscreen, Brent was an accomplished architect and painter.