Rolfe Sedan

Rolfe Sedan was an American character actor, best known for appearing in bit parts, often uncredited, usually portraying clerks, train conductors, postmen, cooks, waiters, etc.

Born Edward Sedan in New York City, his mother was a Broadway theatre fashion designer and his father an orchestra conductor.

Sedan began his career in show business as a vaudeville and nightclub performer and began acting in East Coast theatre. Sedan debuted on Broadway in 1916 and appeared in his first motion picture for Metro Pictures Corporation in 1921.

In 1922 and 1923, Sedan was a featured actor with the Leith-Marsh Players in El Paso, Texas.

Sedan became a prolific character actor in films and is probably best remembered by movie buffs as the hotel manager in Ninotchka (1939) starring Greta Garbo; he appeared in an uncredited role in the musical remake of Ninotchka, Silk Stockings (1957). He also made uncredited appearances in several other Garbo films. He appeared in another uncredited role as the Emerald City's Balloon Ascensionist in The Wizard of Oz (1939). He made uncredited appearances in bit parts in several films starring The Marx Brothers, with somewhat larger parts in Monkey Business (1931) and A Night at the Opera (1935).

Sedan returned to Broadway, performing in several different shows during the first half of the 1940s and in the 1950s began a sequence of guest roles in television series such as I Love Lucy, where he played the chef at a Parisian restaurant in "Paris at Last" (episode 145), The Jack Benny Program, and The Tab Hunter Show. Sedan's most frequent TV work came from recurring roles as hapless mail carriers (25 episodes as Mr. Beasley on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; four episodes as Mr. Briggs on The Addams Family). He was also seen as the train conductor in the film Young Frankenstein (1974), and in bit parts in two other Gene Wilder pictures. Rolfe Sedan remained active throughout a career that spanned more than six decades.

Sedan struggled to be accepted as an actor in radio, gaining his first role after six months of unsuccessful auditions, even though by then he had acted in films for 22 years. His initial broadcasting role came in an episode of Big Town when his voice best suited a specific part in the program. He went on to act in radio dramas that included The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Grand Central Station, Lux Radio Theatre, The March of Time, The Screen Guild Theater, and Silver Theater.

Sedan died in 1982 in Pacific Palisades, California, from heart problems at age 86.